U.S. men's national team goalkeeper Tim Howard caused a stir following Saturday's Gold Cup final loss to Mexico when he lashed out at CONCACAF for the format of the post-game ceremonies at the Rose Bowl, which were held mostly in Spanish.
Howard's comments were a reaction to what Howard felt was a slight by CONCACAF of the host nation, and he was clearly upset during his post-match remarks.
“CONCACAF should be ashamed of themselves,” Howard said after Saturday's Gold Cup Final. “I think it’s a (freaking) disgrace that the entire post-match ceremony was in Spanish. You can bet your ass if we were in Mexico City it wouldn’t be all in English.”
On Tuesday, Howard released a statement clarifying his position:
“I made some comments after the Gold Cup Final that have caused some controversy. I would like to clarify a few points about my comments," Howard said. " First, I would like to apologize for my language. I am the father of young children, and I certainly do not believe profanity is appropriate in public comments. I was caught up in the heat of the moment."
"I also want to stress that I have no problem whatsoever with the use of the Spanish language at international competitions held in the US," Howard said. "I have nothing but great respect for other cultures, and in this case for the Mexican national team and its supporters. On that night, they played a great game and deserved their win. I play in international matches all the time, and multiple languages are used at almost all of them.
"The point I made, which I stand by, is that it is inappropriate and disrespectful for the post-match ceremonies to take place primarily in the language of only one of the participating teams," Howard said. "In any important international match with post-game ceremonies, you would hope the tournament organizers would make sure that the primary language of each participating team is used so that the participants can understand what is being said. To fail to do this is, in my opinion, disrespectful to the players. When this occurs on your home soil, it is particularly insulting.
"We, as American players, were asked to participate in a post-game ceremony at a match in Los Angeles and we are standing there trying to show good sportsmanship and yet the ceremony is going on and we are just looking at one another struggling to understand a word," Howard said. "It was, to be honest, humiliating, and I firmly believe the tournament organizers should not have put us in that position.”
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What do you think of Howard's comments? Agree with him? Think he should have kept quiet?
Share your thoughts below.
you sound like a typical ignorant anti-American…”RACISM! RACISM! RACISM!”
You should be deported.
Maybe you should stick to soccer,because you don’t know the first thing about history.
You are Mexican-American and don’t speak Spanish and somehow feel offended because people assume you do? What an idiocy.
It shows you are ashamed of your roots. Get real, your parent wouldn’t approve.
They made him crawl on the ground and cry, of course he is going to lash complain about something.
Maybe ESPN should have bought the rights to the game and have their own announcer do the presentation. Univision paid the big money,they had their guy in there.
CONCACAF knows who brings in the most money. They are not as stupid as you think.
Hey, hey. Don’t be disrespectful judging all Mexicans by Perndog’s actions. That is offensive and ignorant.
When did I say “all Mexicans”? All I said was I kind of expected the ones in my section to, based on some of the pre game things they were saying and other booing that were doing, and I remember our national anthem being booed at the Azteca in WCQ in ’09.
Easy, son. My best friend, as well as my roommate are both El Tri fans.
This formality that it is not officially stated anywhere is stupid. What language was the Constitution written in?
The fifteen minute ceremony was in Spanish with a few seconds of token English phrases. Don’t kid yourself, it was a Spanish-language ceremony. I stayed for the trophy ceremony, even with Mexican fans throwing food and trash at me. I listened to it. I couldn’t understand it because aside from a few bits and pieces here and there, it was in Spanish.
Howard specifically said that his anger was directed at the CONCACAF officials. He congratulated the Mexican team for their superior play and said he had no excuses for losing to them. Maybe brush up on your reading skills…?
Lots of Mexican fans were yelling racial slurs and threatening to beat me after the game. I stopped to say “Felicidades a Mexico” and applauded them for their team’s victory. It gave them pause and some of them stopped to give me high fives. That doesn’t excuse them for their poor sportsmanship. Why do I have to congratulate them in their own language just to get them not to threaten me?
I admit, I did see a really cool Mexico / US unity flag in the crowd. I also met a couple of Mexican fans that were really cool, I exchanged info with them so we could see some Galaxy games together later on. It was frankly inspiring, though I still felt unsafe in the stadium because not all of the Mexican fans were so kind.
What ever happened to… respect? Anybody? Hello? Anybody?
The Mexican fans in the stadium were TRASH. That is a fact. It has nothing to do with racism or nationalism or anything else. Throwing your beers and physically abusing people around you is a TRASH thing to do. If you consider Americans to be racist for pointing this out, what do you think of the Mexicans who were making threats, starting fights, and literally assaulting Americans AND EVEN EACH OTHER in the stadium? It is low class. It is pathetic. They were trash.
Cursing and swearing and flipping people off is one thing, it shows a lack of civility but I won’t hold it against you because I can let that slide. When you represent your people by threatening my personal space and my safety in my own home town, at my own home team’s home game, how do you expect me to react? You’re pathetic, low class trash. Plain and simple. I don’t care if you’re Mexican, American, German, Martian, doesn’t make a difference. You’re trash.
Mexicans boo our national anthem and cry and bitch and moan about free speech. We ask them to be respectful and suddenly it’s racism. WHO was booing WHO? Hypocritical, classless, trash.