Football at Its Finest - International Campaign to Fight Racism

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Image from UEFA.com
As I watched the Sunday finals of the UEFA 2012 where Spain was taking on Italy, I was reminded of the campaign that Europe has taken to fight racism present in the region.  Mario Balotelli, player for Italy, has received loads of racist calls referring to images of monkeys and other derogatory terms.  There were other bouts of violence and racist exchanges between crowds of Russians and Czechs in earlier games.  Yet, regardless of the game, there were electronic ads each game that blazed the words “RESPECT” and to end racism across the European area. 

Even before the UEFA 2012 began in June, football teams would take their entire teams to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp.  Europe as an entity of intertwined states has come to terms with World War II and the consequences of extreme nationalism and e.g. racism.  The RESPECT campaign was an international effort to campaign against racism in the country, and there have been consequences for those who have violated the rules of UEFA.  Many a fans and football clubs have been fined for inciting racial slur violations during games.

On this Independence Day in America, I hope that we can rise up as a nation to combat racism in this nation.  There may be a black President currently in the White House, but the fight is long over from racism in the U.S.  And it takes a whole country, person by person, and municipality by municipality, to combat it.

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