"Black shit", "monkey", "go to your fucking country", the insults that the 'others' Vinicius endure daily
Tafarell Buene arrived in Spain because a guy left his quadriplegic father with one blow after calling him a “black shit” and sending him “back to his country”. So, at the age of nine, he landed in Vallecas from Kinshasa with his mother and sister in a family reunification derived from that terrible racist attack.
Tafarell loved football since he was little and, thanks to a volunteer from the Movement Against Intolerance, he was admitted to the lower categories of Rayo Vallecano. “The team was incredible, I had problems with Spanish and the kids welcomed me very well,” he says in conversation with EL MUNDO. Then the problems started.
In games away from home the parents of other children shouted: “Get out of there, that black is going to kill you” or “be careful with that monkey” and he, since he did not understand Spanish very well, was not aware of the insults until that his coach told him: “Calm down, they have no education”. Was 10.
Tafarel looking at a Rayo Vallecano training field.
The insults grew with him, as did his ability to understand them.. “Black, fucking monkey, go to your fucking country”, they would let go of him, and they even spat at him when he approached the band for a ball. “They were things that hurt me, but I just wanted to play football,” says Tafarell. Shortly after, not even that could. The coaches did not summon him to protect him when the team played in hostile fields and he, of course, would come home crying inconsolably. I was 15 years old.
“I thought about giving up, I stopped going to football for a few weeks because why, if every time I went to a field the insults were increasing,” says this former footballer who had to leave the sport he loved not because of this terrible situation but because of a groin injury that was difficult for him to recover from without surgery. “Racism in football is something common in all categories,” explains Tafarell. Because?
“It's not that sport exacerbates racism, it's that impunity scenarios make it possible,” reasons Esteban Ibarra, president of the Movement Against Intolerance.. It is an impunity, that of the masses, which also seemed judicial. It must be remembered that the Madrid Prosecutor filed the complaint of racist chants against Vinicius outside the Cívitas Metropolitano for “not being able to recognize any of the people who uttered the chants, since there were a considerable number of individuals gathered there.”
Vinicius being rebuked at the Mestalla stadium. Getty
Then came the Mestalla, the earthquake and the mobilization of all levels against racism in football, but grassroots and amateur football are not sure that it will be definitive.. “This is not changed by a single person, the law has to stand firm. The important thing is that people learn”, explains Mamadou Basirou, a former referee from Zaragoza who obtained a historic sentence against two individuals who insulted him in a juvenile game in Aragon.
There were nine months in prison and a fine of 500 euros and another four months in prison for two parents who called Mamadou “black, black, fucking black, I shit on your race” and also “go to the desert, that's where you have to be , we are going to give you a beating so that you will not see the bruises because you are a black shit”. The first were sentenced for the crime of injuring the dignity of people for racist reasons and the second for resisting authority. However, they were acquitted of the accusation for crimes of threats and incitement to hatred.
Mamadou charged between 13 and 20 euros for refereeing a match that, on top of that, did not correspond to him because he had come as a substitute. “If the Civil Guard does not arrive, they give me hosts, that is the hardest thing. If we won at least millions, but we don't win anything, we lose time for shit,” Mamadou tells EL MUNDO. After that episode, of course, he left arbitration. “The referees in grassroots or amateur competitions assume everything and that is a lot. They are very lonely,” says Esteban Ibarra.
In Spain there are 1,380,000 soccer federation licenses. Of these, barely 500 belong to professional footballers who rub shoulders with Vinicius every Sunday. The average salary of the Real Madrid squad, for example, is 10 million euros per year. “It can affect billionaires, it doesn't help me at all because it can get messy if you face them. And it's worse because it can end violently,” explains Luis Meseguer, right-back for the Unión Adarve Sports Group (Madrid).
Luis Meseguer in the Unión Adarve field.
Luis Meseguer, 'Mese', was born in Spain to a Guinean father and a Spanish mother. In his case, in youth, it was a rival who starred in his first contact with racism. “He was calling me black throughout the game, although at the end he apologized and gave me the typical phrase: 'I have many black friends,'” he recalls.
On another occasion, he and a black teammate were given monkey noises every time one of them touched the ball.. “We didn't say anything because we have the normalized insult. When it happens to me, I try to avoid it,” he says.. Although he has another curious technique when it happens, similar to the one Dani Alves used in 2014 when a banana was thrown at him in a game against Villarreal and he began to eat it before taking a corner.
“We were playing against Guadalajara and people began to tell me everything, then I started to laugh and in the end they ended up laughing too and stopped,” reveals the player. Mese is aware that not everyone is capable of reacting as he does not only to racist insults but to any affront in general and he is confident that Vinicius will help “eliminate not only racist insults, but all”. It goes in line with the reflection made by the FC Barcelona coach, Xavi Hernández, shortly after the incidents at Mestalla.
And it is that everyone is clear about a factor that is missing in this case: “education”. “If we educate the children well and neither they nor the coach play along with the parents who insult them, they themselves will be exposed,” says the president of the Movement Against Intolerance. It is evident that children are not born racists, but are made. The question that underlies everything and that is very difficult to answer from grassroots and amateur football is obvious: Is Spain racist?
Close-up of Luis Meseguer
All the protagonists begin with a resounding no, but always end with a more or less strong adversative depending on experience.. “It is not generally so, but I have met many”, Mamadou. “I don't think Spain is racist, just that Vinicius has been personally hurt”, Mese. “I would like to say no, but there are behaviors that are”, Tafarell. “Not Spain and football, but there are behaviors in Spain and in football that do work”, Esteban Ibarra.
Now there is an opportunity to change. If it is not changed. Perhaps soccer loses wealth, loses color. “People have to learn, because otherwise, in the end, people would give up football and nobody would want to play,” concludes Mamadou.