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Boateng discusses standing up to racist chants

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  1. When the coaches start pulling teams off the pitch for this and FIFA and the leagues support them with fines and bans aimed at the offending clubs, it will end. Sadly probably not before.

    Right now, economically a club just pays the fine and thereby saves hiring an extra 100 or more security guards for every game. You can do the math, 1 guard say $100 per game 20 games, 100 guards $200,000 for a year of home games. I suspect those are low numbers both for the number of police needed to deal with a couple thousand fans and low fees, so the clubs/owners have only pure motives to encourage them to spend the money, not economics.

    Fines should be over half a million, maybe well over, and home games should be banned with no visitor tickets for away matches for at least a year. That will not end racism, but it will shut the idiots up.

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  2. Its time for more white players to stand out front on the issue. I appreciate that his coach and captain and teammates all backed him up. That’s a good start, but they need to start recognizing things like this and acting themselves before the direct victims have to. Its time for teams like this lower division team to tell fans that what they’re doing isn’t acceptable. I hope the same would happen in a more important game and that the offending fans would get a forfeit for their team.

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  3. Completely support his actions, and glad he talked to CNN and verbalized his feelings. I hope every player in every league does the same thing going forward regardless the magnitude of the game. I think it is quite sad that it took a players actions for this to be a big story.

    I have always felt that FIFA has done an abysmal job at handling derogatory chants based on race/ethnicity/nationality/religion/sexuality. I think there are many ways to give an opposing team shit, but those are not the ways. I think the minuscule fines handed out to clubs are ridiculous.

    FIFA need to play hardball until this stops. 1. Stop the game 2. Award all 3 points to the away team as punishment to the poor behaving fans. 3. Also fine the team x amount of dollars. 4. If it happens again, repeat 1-3 and dock additional points and add a larger fine. I believe this to be the minimum course of action FIFA should take.

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    • I like your solution too. The main point being, if it’s an official game, the loss has to be awarded to the offending team. The only problem that could arise would be fans wearing jerseys of the team they oppose and trying to get games called in their favor. But heavy jail time could solve that temptation. FIFA, local authorities, and the team stadium staff have to get off their butts and put the smackdown on this. Until then, KPG has to continue inspiring other players to take direct action.

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    • For sure. I love this quote from a Guardian Article:

      “Slogans. Paltry fines. Captains reading out prepared statements over the Tannoy. More paltry fines. T-shirts. Even more paltry fines … When nothing meaningful changes, eventually there comes a time for direct action”

      Sums up my feelings perfectly.

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  4. Good on Boateng. HOWEVER, the problem with this type of reaction AND all the media attention it’s getting is that it just adds fuel to the fire and may likely only increase the amount of racist chanting. Idiots are not leaving the worlds anytime soon, the only way to stop it is for FIFA and UEFA to punish the clubs and their supporters with HUGE fines and SUSPENDING teams from being allowed to have supporters at the games. Unfortunately we have not seen that yet from FIFA. They are fining people more for wearing inappropriate underwear or the wrong sponsors than they are for racist sh*t.

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  5. any teams’ fans convicted of racist chants should be fined, not this $15k crap fine… I mean $500k and a replay of the game in either an empty stadium (if away) or no-away fans’ tickets given out or sold.

    It’s crazy people like KPB have to walk off just to not be subjected to some kind of ignorant chants. Sepp needs to focus his ignorant ass on racism. (he believes racism has been wiped out because of the WC in S. Africa… look it up)

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    • While I’d love to fine every racist every cent they have, I don’t think that’s the proper solution. It isn’t the clubs themselves, it isn’t fans of the clubs, it doesn’t even appear to be fans of the game, it’s just stupid people. I think we should be working with the clubs to get of these people as opposed to fining them large chunks of money they may not have. Now if a club doesn’t appear to be doing anything about racist behavior that’s a different story.

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  6. I love how he says at the end that he would walk off the field regardless of the game’s magnitude. Hopefully it never gets to that point, but I’m impressed by his handling of this and the pro-active stance he’s taking.

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  7. It was wise for Boateng to take a deliberate, visible stand during the match. Too often players put up with the abuse, maybe commenting after the game. When a match ends prematurely due to the actions of few, it sends a message to all that they’re going to lose their money if ignorant racism disrupts a match. Then I think we’ll see more self-policing of fans.

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    • I agree, but also think that an official FIFA wide policy of stopping the game, removing the imbeciles from the stands, playing again until/unless it happens again in another part of the stands, then awarding the victory automatically to the non-offending team might put a stop to it as well.

      That being said, no player should ever feel obligated to keep playing under these circumstances if they don’t want to.

      This was a Rosa Parks moment. It’s a shame we need a Rosa Parks moment these days, but I think the world’s patience is finally running out with these fools.

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      • Eh, strike the part about playing again. Too lenient. Automatic immediate forfeit for team with the offending fans.

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