Brazil Actually Addresses Fan Racism in a Useful Way

I was going to do a post about racism in English football.  In fact, it is mostly written and I will finish it soon.  However, in researching that post, I discovered something astonishing.  An official sports tribunal actually imposed a meaningful sanction on a team in response to racist abuse of an player by opposing fans.

During a Brazilian Cup match between Santos and Gremio, a group of Gremio fans engaged in the all too usual monkey chanting racist abuse bigotry—targeting the Santos goalie, Aranha.  According to Aranha, he reported the matter to the referee, who did nothing and told him he was provoking the fans, apparently by being too dark skinned. Santos won the first leg of the cup tie 2-0.  However, the referee did not mention the incident in his match report.   

Normally, that would be the end of it or the authorities would impose a small fine, but strangely significant actions were taken in response to the incident.

Gremio banned the fan group whose members were responsible for the racist abuse. One fan was fired from her job at a police hospital.  Most importantly, Gemio was fined and disqualified from the competition.   The match referee and his assistants were also banned and fined.

Apparently, these decisions were popular around the world.  That paragon of virtue, Sepp Blatter himself, praised the decision.    As we all know, Blatter knows racism when he sees it. 

Blatter mockery aside, this time he was right.  This is an important event.  Minor fines and the banning of individual fans will never have any effect on racist abuse at football games.  The only way it will be stopped is if the teams themselves suffer real penalties.  This is such a penalty.  Gremio will appeal the decision, but we can hope nothing comes of the appeal—if the appeal is successful it would certainly send the wrong message to racist football fans everywhere.

However, I do not believe that this penalty, strong as it was, was strong enough.  Banning Gremio from a competition when they were unlikely to advance is not enough.  I would also require Gremio to play its next home game against Santos at the Santos stadium with no Gremio fans in attendance—with Santos keeping all the money.  I would also excuse Santos from selling tickets to Gremio supporters at the next scheduled Santos home match against Gremio.  This type of sanction would provide a benefit to the team whose player was the victim of the racist abuse and significantly punish the offending team.  It is also a sanction, along with disqualification or match forfeiture, that could easily be imposed in international competition.  These sanctions would not stop all racist abuse, of course, but it would give the teams with racist fans more of an incentive to prevent these incidents in advance.