dibo
Well-Known Member
What abuse is acceptable to hurl at footballers?
Thoughts?
Everyone agrees that homophobic and racist chants are unacceptable, but the line is not so easy to draw elsewhere
Sol Campbell, foreground, has often been the target of fans' abuse, particularly at White Hart Lane. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/Tom Jenkins
There were dozens of extra cameras and policeman at White Hart Lane today, lenses and eyes fixed on the 36,000 crowd, fingers twitching and ready to finger the collar of anyone singing that breathtakingly offensive chant about Sol Campbell. Thankfully it never materialised - or if it did, none of the Guardian's journalists at the ground heard it.
But while it's comforting to know the vast majority of Spurs fans find such odious ditties as repellent as other right-thinking members of what passes for polite society in UK football stadia these days, there is an understandable worry among some supporters that being subjected to the unwavering gaze of Big Brother has compromised their God-given right to express their revulsion for Campbell's betrayal in less vitriolic terms. After all, the man dumped on them from a great height by taking Arsenal's 30 pieces of silver and can't complain if they let him know his betrayal has not been forgotten. Indeed, the handful of Spurs fans braying that they were going to "Shit on Sol Campbell" outside a church before today's game were quickly told to desist by police.
Earlier in the week, Portsmouth goalkeeper and Observer columnist David James claimed that it was fine for fans to give as much stick as they like "as long as it is not racist or homophobic", which is where many would draw the line. But how much abuse is too much? If homophobic and racist chanting are strictly off limits because they are illegal, are insults about club tragedies, players' wives, children, mums, illnesses, extra-marital affairs or XXX-rated home movies more acceptable because they're not? And is it really OK to scream "c**t" at someone who is taking a throw-in just a few feet away? Even if ... well, he is one?
There's a question of interpretation here too. It's not uncommon for sanctimonious Spurs fans to steam into blogs and chat forums to claim that singing about Campbell being big, black and liking it up the crack "isn't actually racist". What's more, they nit-pick, that lyric portraying him as a mentally unstable HIV-infected Judas hanging from a tree "doesn't refer to a lynching" - as if that makes the chant OK.
In recent seasons, Newcastle fans in particular have been much maligned for using the medium of song to call Middlesbrough striker Mido a shoe bomber on the grounds that such chanting is racist and Islamophobic. To these ears, Newcastle's fans weren't, as Kick It Out spokesman Piara Powar suggested, calling just any old Muslim "a terrorist, a shoe bomber or whatever", they were specifically likening Mido to the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, to whom Mido bears a genuinely striking resemblance. However, others, including Mido and his manager Gareth Southgate, find the chant deeply racist and offensive.
My rule of thumb when it comes to abusing sportsmen is that I tend not to shout anything from the stands that I wouldn't feel comfortable saying if I met them out doing the weekly shop. For all I know, the Sunderland fan sitting beside me a couple of rows behind one of the goals at Craven Cottage earlier this season might employ the same policy, but would have no problem following Mark Schwarzer around Asda for 90 minutes shouting "You butter-fingered Aussie wanker, I shagged your wife last night."
Thoughts?
