The Sporting Statesman by Chris Bowers

Author:Chris Bowers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781784180485
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2014-07-20T23:00:00+00:00

Interestingly, Vieira was never charged over the incident, despite ‘zingaro’ or ‘zingara’ being unquestionably racist, whereas Mihajlovic was banned for two games by Uefa. This contrast in treatment backs up Wilson’s point about anti-black racism being considered more of a sin than anti-gipsy racism, at least in the corridors of power of European football. Although it in no way excuses his behaviour, it’s hard not to agree with Mihajlovic’s basic logic that one form of racism is as bad as another. Mihajlovic went on to make a statement from the centre circle of the pitch during Lazio’s next home game, saying he had been wrong, expressing regret and saying he didn’t hold racist views. The statement was prompted by an extreme right-wing Italian group welcoming his racist views and he was keen to dissociate himself from them, but under Italian law he could have gone to prison for three years, so it may have been a partially tactical disavowal of racism.

Other remarks Mihajlovic made about the Vieira incident suggested his biggest beef with Vieira was that he brought a matter that should have been left on the field into the public domain by talking about it in a press conference. It seems to suggest Mihajlovic is working to a medieval, or perhaps gangland, code of ethics, in which honour has to be salvaged and insults avenged. Given the love, affection and esteem his fellow Serbs have for Mihajlovic, you wonder whether this undercurrent of tribalism is still working against the interests of a country that aspires to be a member of Europe’s modern-day economic community.

But there’s a wider point that Jonathan Wilson makes, which needs to be taken into account. Racism is still a problem in European football, and no doubt it is on the list of tasks for the Serbian football association FSS to deal with. But Wilson says the FSS can be forgiven for having its attention grabbed by bigger fish.

There was a European championship qualifier in October 2010 between Italy and Serbia in Genoa. It had to be abandoned after a few minutes after a delayed start because Serbian hooligans were running riot, but if you look at the context, you see a lot of what’s going on in the background. There was a banner ‘Kosovo is Serbian’ and the match took place as Hillary Clinton [the then US Secretary of State, or foreign minister] flew to Belgrade to discuss Kosovo. There was also anger that the Serbian goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic had joined Partizan, having previously been with Red Star – that was seen as a major betrayal by many Serb nationalists. And there was fury over the arrest of a drug smuggler. Piece it all together and you see that, just to keep football in Serbia running, the FSS has to tackle hooliganism, organised crime, match-fixing, corruption and endemic violence – some of it against a nationalistic background that it can’t control. It doesn’t excuse racism, but it does explain why the FSS may have more immediate priorities.

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