This boards view on *alleged* racist behaviour

[lurker of old]

I think that Neville is spot on here.

I think Neville's comments were outrageous. Calling the Prime Minister a racist is slander and he should face consequences. He isn't on TV to make cheap political jibes. And before you mention Boris' "letter box" comment - itself a jibe- Boris's argument was that Britain should not follow France and make the full face veil illegal. But having a pop at it is totally legit: I see the full face veil as a complete affront to British values. Far better to use humour than anger. I don't know when Boris made the "Picaninnies" reference, bur I'm sure whoever mentioned it will enlighten me!

 

[scaramanga]

You lost your right to criticise others when you insinuated that Rudiger could have made this up to try and gain an advantage because he was a Chelsea player and that's what they do.

He's a Chelsea, I don't think there's anything they wouldn't do

 

[StephenH]

Sadly this is just another example of overreaction in the media.
An idiot shouts something stupid and the media bandwagon jumps and once again highjacks it in their hunger for a story.
No it’s not nice/right but some players/people are blowing it out of all proportion.

‘They’ are now calling for a government enquiry or In other words ‘kicking it into the long grass’. What a total waste of time and money!
Racism will only continue to fade with education and everybody calling everybody out including their friends and relations and fellow forum users!
Yesterday’s type of incident I doubt will ever be eradicated completely.
Players also must get some perspective and stop overreacting! I have been called many names due to my height or lack there of, sticks and stones etc and starving these idiot name callers of oxygen is my way forward!

 

[scaramanga]

Sadly this just another example overreaction in the media.
An idiot shouts something stupid and the media bandwagon jumps and once highjacks it in their hunger for a story.
No it’s not nice/right but some players/people are blowing it out of all proportion.

‘They’ are calling for a government enquiry or In other words ‘kicking into the long grass’. What a total waste of time and money!
Racism will only continue to fade with education and everybody calling everybody out including their friends and relations and fellow forum users!
Yesterday type of incident I doubt will ever be eradicated completely.
Players also must get some perspective and stop overreacting! I have been called many names due my height or lack there of, sticks and stones etc and starving these name callers of oxygen is my way forward!

Correction: A player has accused someone of shouting something stupid - no more than that yet.

 

[Baleforce]

Ridiculous idea. Punishing a whole club for 1 or 2 idiots is absurd. They should be banned and face legal action. But what's to stop a couple of West Ham fans coming into our ground, sitting with the home fans and venting some racist actions resulting in us playing behind closed doors and losing millions of pounds.

That’s clearly not enough of a deterrent as it’s still happening.

If the perpetrator can be unquestionably proven to be aligned with the organisation, member/regular/season ticket holder for example, then the punishment should rightly hit the whole club.

Zero tolerance, with a disproportionate response, these fudgers need to be sent back to their holes.

 

[SpurMeUp]

The ref was concerned enough that he spoke to both coaches, the officials and got the club make multiple announcements over the PA.

All things everyone saw. What we don't know yet, is what the Ref was concerned by. Was it one player hearing racist chants? Was it gestures - easy to prove with CCTV. Was it verified by match officials who heard it to? Or our players? No player, on our side or theirs wants this and would corroborate if it occurred.

 

[monkeybarry]

If anybody heard racism would you tell a steward or whoever?

I don’t go too often but yes I would.

This is my first thought.
Someone must have been next to or behind them - that's not to say you can definitely identify who it was though, but quite likely.

 

[scaramanga]

All things everyone saw. What we don't know yet, is what the Ref was concerned by. Was it one player hearing racist chants? Was it gestures - easy to prove with CCTV. Was it verified by match officials who heard it to? Or our players? No player, on our side or theirs wants this and would corroborate if it occurred.

The ref was only reacting to the player complaint. That's his job - not to question the accuracy.

Then the announcements have to be made - again, nobody actually checks what's happened.

Now the club will scour video and audio for any record of it happening. There's a decent chance it won't be found, but I bet Rudiger won't be forced to retract his accusations if so, and I bet there'll be nothing in the press either. What will happen though, is that everyone involved in football will remember that time Spurs did a racist whether we actually did or not.

 

[Glenda's Legs]

The ref was only reacting to the player complaint. That's his job - not to question the accuracy.

Then the announcements have to be made - again, nobody actually checks what's happened.

Now the club will scour video and audio for any record of it happening. There's a decent chance it won't be found, but I bet Rudiger won't be forced to retract his accusations if so, and I bet there'll be nothing in the press either. What will happen though, is that everyone involved in football will remember that time Spurs did a racist whether we actually did or not.

This is very true.
The club is unfortunate in so far as being the first in the PL to invoke the protocol of the repeated stadium announcements. This is turn has given the impression that the racist incidents were ongoing (it certainly gave that impression inside the ground) and of course the media are all over it. I expect we will see more of this (the protocol announcements) happening in the future at other clubs but whatever happens in this instance, mud will stick to our club. I'm just waiting for Baddiel to stick his oar in.
I have already said that if/when the perpetrator is identified then he should face strong censure and punishment. But if it transpires that Rudiger did simply misconstrue booing for monkey chants, then I would hope the club would share the video and audio with him and Chelsea, and explain in a public statement that they have done so.

 

[Mikey10]

I think that Neville is spot on here.

I think Neville's comments were outrageous. Calling the Prime Minister a racist is slander and he should face consequences. He isn't on TV to make cheap political jibes. And before you mention Boris' "letter box" comment - itself a jibe- Boris's argument was that Britain should not follow France and make the full face veil illegal. But having a pop at it is totally legit: I see the full face veil as a complete affront to British values. Far better to use humour than anger. I don't know when Boris made the "Picaninnies" reference, bur I'm sure whoever mentioned it will enlighten me!

In his Spectator and Telegraph columns, where he’s spouted all sorts of vile nonsense over the years.

Good on Neville for having a view. The irony of Johnson suing someone for expressing an opinion wouldn’t be lost on too many, given he’s lost three public positions due to lying.

Anyway, this is all getting a bit ‘Politics, politics, politics’ thread so I’ll leave it there. Whether anything was said to Rudiger or not, it seems from comments from our own posters that some very unsavoury things were going on amongst our fans yesterday.

 

[Grays_1890]

The fact people still think a football stadium is a safe haven to be racist is an issue. I know its a social thing but people act at football matches like the would not at work or on the street and thats a HUGE worry.

But maybe football who preach zero tolerance are partly to blame.

The football authorities on racism and corruption are just not setting the standard, in a game in which we allow racist players to thrive, where John Terry was given a 4 match ban....a 4 match ban, where is the Zero Tolerance the game says it wants? They are more worried about lawyers and perception than doing what is right.

What standard is set by proving Qatar and Russia were awarded World Cups via Corruption and you still allow them to host? The standard set is poor, across the board, its utterly utterly poor.

Players like Jamie Carragher who came out years after Suarez incident and said he was wrong, its too late, the horse bolted and he was complicit, why was it seen right only 8 years ago to stand shoulder to shoulder with Suarez? What is racist now was racist then so what happened? Was it just brain fade or lack of back bone that he did not act like a real man then?

 

[scaramanga]

The fact people still think a football stadium is a safe haven to be racist is an issue. I know its a social thing but people act at football matches like the would not at work or on the street and thats a HUGE worry.

But maybe football who preach zero tolerance are partly to blame.

The football authorities on racism and corruption are just not setting the standard, in a game in which we allow racist players to thrive, where John Terry was given a 4 match ban....a 4 match ban, where is the Zero Tolerance the game says it wants? They are more worried about lawyers and perception than doing what is right.

What standard is set by proving Qatar and Russia were awarded World Cups via Corruption and you still allow them to host? The standard set is poor, across the board, its utterly utterly poor.

Players like Jamie Carragher who came out years after Suarez incident and said he was wrong, its too late, the horse bolted and he was complicit, why was it seen right only 8 years ago to stand shoulder to shoulder with Suarez? What is racist now was racist then so what happened? Was it just brain fade or lack of back bone that he did not act like a real man then?

What happened is that Carragher wants a career where standing up for racists isn't acceptable and therefore has to say that in order to earn money.

 

[Grays_1890]

What happened is that Carragher wants a career where standing up for racists isn't acceptable and therefore has to say that in order to earn money.

Yep so we forgive him a pretty major blip.

So we are really serious about racism right?

 

[elyid]

Other than in the 90s (when racist songs were sung by all clubs) I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the lack of racism I’ve heard at Spurs.

Think the only time I’ve heard anything was Park Lane in a North London derby and several people quickly had a word and it stopped.

 

[Grays_1890]

No other country done more to get rid of racism but there was no plan B, so now its happening again we are unprepared, we thought job done, obviously not.

 

[DaveT316]

At the risk of opening up a whole other can of worms, where are people’s heads at with the ‘rent boys’ comments / songs? I heard plenty of that yesterday - surely there should be zero tolerance on that too?

 

[StephenH]

A player could use this to their advantage and gets the opposition sanctioned.
Let's wait and see if they find the culprits.

 

[Grays_1890]

At the risk of opening up a whole other can of worms, where are people’s heads at with the ‘rent boys’ comments / songs? I heard plenty of that yesterday - surely there should be zero tolerance on that too?

Yeh I agree, the level of this stuff thats seen as "the norm" is over the top for me.

Additionally the fans that often churn this crap out are the ones that believe they are real fans, the back bone of the game, the ones that moan about the game being too modern and they are the last part of the old game left.

 

[Glenda's Legs]

At the risk of opening up a whole other can of worms, where are people’s heads at with the ‘rent boys’ comments / songs? I heard plenty of that yesterday - surely there should be zero tolerance on that too?

Yes, there should.

I was surprised that I didn't hear that yesterday. I suspect had we been winning at any stage it would have been more prevalent.

 

[scaramanga]

Yep so we forgive him a pretty major blip.

So we are really serious about racism right?

Unfortunately most aren't - he's been contrite enough for Sky though clearly.