It's high time Sepp Blatter's gang recognised football's racist underbelly
Fears that Italian football might be losing its racist identity have been allayed by the intervention of the former Azzurri coach Arrigo Sacchi, who makes an important intervention on the changing face of football in his country.
"I'm certainly not racist," he began promisingly. "But look at the Viareggio [youth] tournament – I would say that there are too many black players. Italy has no dignity, no pride."
Invited to clarify later, Sacchi explained he had been misquoted – and hey, which racist hasn't been?
"I just said I saw a team who fielded four coloured boys – I just wanted to point out that we are losing our national pride and identity," he added.
Mmm. Everyone's a little bit racist, as the FBI director reminded us in a speech last week, with the exception of myriad folk in the upper reaches of football here and overseas, who are not racist. End of. It's like Chris Finch in The Office says: "How can I hate women? My mum's one." Same with football bigwigs accused of racism: how can any of these people be racist? They've bought black players. Literally got their chequebooks out for them.
Related: Arrigo Sacchi and Italian football’s ethical dilemma about foreign players
If you owned a black player – or had owned one in the past – you ought to be automatically insulated from the preposterous idea that you might hold prejudiced attitudes. Especially if you let one play football for you. You would certainly be entitled to join the exalted club of football people who are not racists, but have occasionally been required to state this fact, much to their own exasperation. People like Wigan manager Malky Mackay, who isn't racist, despite calling a Malaysian person a "chink" and whatnot.
Then there are people like his current boss Dave Whelan, who explained that "Jewish people chase money more than anybody else" in the course of backing Mackay on the whole "chink" thing – or "chingalings", as Dave prefers.
Then there's Emre Belozoglu, who escaped FA punishment for racism a few times during his stint in the Premier League, but had a bit of bother with comments directed at Didier Zokora a couple of years back, and who isn't a racist because "there's no place for racism in Turkish culture – it's a sin". "If there's the slightest feeling of racism inside me," Emre went on, "may Allah rip my heart out." He gave him a two-and-a-half month suspended sentence instead, the old softy. And then, arguably, there are people like Paolo DiCanio – although as Paolo himself has explained: "I'm a fascist, not a racist." Another misquote there, apparently – and you can only imagine the scope for colossal misunderstanding those
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