Football faces wave of racial, offensive abuse incidents amid FIFA pledge to stop games

GENEVA (AP):

TWO INTERNATIONAL football games were stopped because of racial abuse between players. A United States-Mexico game was cut short amid homophobic chants by fans, and an adviser to Brazil player Vinícius Júnior racially harassed by a steward at a stadium in Spain.

All these incidents in the past week are evidence of an “urgent crisis” facing football, an anti-discrimination group that works with FIFA and European football body UEFA said yesterday.

The two men’s games abandoned Monday – when New Zealand and the Ireland under-21 team refused to continue playing after hearing racial abuse by opponents from Qatar and Kuwait, respectively – followed days after FIFA president Gianni Infantino reset football’s task to tackle discrimination.

“There is no football if there is racism! So let’s stop the games,” Infantino said last Friday after meeting with Vinícius in Barcelona and enlisting him to work with FIFA and other players.

Vinícius, who is black, has been the target of sustained racist abuse by fans in Spanish stadiums throughout the season while playing for Real Madrid, with little done by referees or football organisers to protect him.

The New Zealand and Ireland football federations did not cite Infantino’s pledge when they explained on Monday why their teams would not continue the exhibition games, both played in Austria.

Still, the message was clear to FIFA’s long-time advisers on discrimination at international football games, the London-based Fare network.

“Two international matches abandoned due to racial abuse in one evening tells us something about the way in which young players are no longer prepared to tolerate racism on the pitch,” Fare executive director Piara Powar said yesterday in a statement.

“On top of the behaviour of a Spanish steward who racially abused a friend of Vinícius Júnior by wielding a banana at a match in which the Brazilian team took the knee, and the USA vs Mexico match that last week was stopped twice and cut short by the referee due to homophobia, we can see the urgent crisis football is facing.”

FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Zurich-based body has jurisdiction over international friendlies between teams from different continental confederations such as the New Zealand-Qatar and Ireland-Kuwait games.