Kicking out racism: Retribution or a cruel jape?

The Italian Club S.S Lazio has faced heavy criticism after a group of fans racially abused Jermain Defoe, Aaron Lennon and Andros Townsend from Tottenham Hotspur FC, in full view of the UEFA President Michel Platini. They were slapped with a fine to the tune of forty thousand Euros and Platini seemed dismayed. At first look, one might think it’s fair judgment but if you review the history of how UEFA has dealt with racism as opposed to other misconduct issues, you will realize the farce that is this fine.

Here’s a list of the times that UEFA has made a joke out of retribution -:

1) Macedonia’s fall– Despite the fact that the commentator from the qualifier match between England and Macedonia offered to identify the Macedonian fans who racially abused Cole, Heskey and Sol Campbell, the UEFA took a passive approach towards dealing with this issue and issued a fine of sixteen thousand five hundred pounds. A fair punishment? I think not!

2) The Serbian Double Trouble– If you thought the Serbs were first time offenders with the show that they put up against England recently, you are mistaken. They seem to have a skewed perspective towards racial differences and in a similar Under-21 European Championship against England, the Serbian fans decided to voice their racial chants. It got bad enough to make the officials intervene. In 2007, the Serbs were issued a fine of sixteen thousand five pounds for racism. In 2012, the UEFA jury is still out. Here’s hoping for substantial action.

3) The Bulgarian Feud– Young, Cole and Walcott have faced several racial assaults in their career as professional footballers, it is as sad as it is disheartening. In the fall of 2011, Bulgarian fans directed monkey chants at these young men resulting in a huge controversy. Even though Lothar Matthaus issued an apology, it just didn’t cut it. UEFA fined Bulgaria FA a little over thirty four thousand pounds as opposed to a time in 2007, when they fined Chelsea almost ninety thousand pounds because of a failure to “control fans”. The cause-effect scenario seems a little out of place, call me biased if you may.

4) Shame on Porto– Racism has been a rather serious issue in football and like most epidemics it should, ideally, be regressive in nature. Except, somehow the frequency of these instances seems to be increasing with every passing season. In April this year, Porto FC was fined sixteen thousand pounds for racist abuse against Manchester City’s golden boy, Mario Balotelli. UEFA took six weeks to “investigate” and declare a suitable fine. Compared to how they deal with trivial issues like delays, this is seems lazy, even for a governing body.

5) Spanish Armada v/s The Ruskies v/s Brand placement– During the Euro 2012, both Russia and Spain were handed customary fines that were more pocket change than actual dough. While both Balotelli and Theodor Gebre were racially attacked, there was no real outcome that served as a deterrent against racism. Chew on this – During Euro 2012, Nicklas Bendtner was fined over eighty thousand pounds for revealing a logo of a betting company on his underpants. Well, what’s out of place you think? This amount was exactly double of what Russia and Spain were fined for racism.

UEFA has been urged to take severe action against the Serbians to deter similar behavioural patterns from other quarters but as expected, an “investigation” is still on. I wonder what’s more integral to the game – a badly worded tweet or a violation of human right with racial abuse. Also, as a matter of trivial pursuit – While the over enthused Nicklas Bendtner was banned for a match post his underwear flash, none of the aforementioned countries or clubs were banned from, let alone a season, even a match.