Japanese striker Yuki Nakamura has written on his blog citing racism as the reason for his departure from Slovak football club Rimavska Sobota, where he was on loan from Viktoria Zizkov.
Speaking on his own blog, Nakamura wrote “It’s a real shame but I have come home because I have been subjected to racism at Rimavska Sobota and I can’t carry on living there”. Nakamura mentioned how fans would launch abuse at him at matches and that it didn’t seem to matter to his teammates, according to Bigpondsport.com.
After the club said there was nothing they could do about it, the Japanese player decided to return home. A plan is being discussed in FIFA at present about penalising clubs for racist abuse by deducting points from them.
As a Slovak who lived in Japan many years, I can tell you that racism is in Japan as well. It is present in many countries I have lived or traveled to.
Sports + booze = dangerous combination.
This magnifies the problem.
Nakamura should be stronger in spirit and brush off racism just as many “gaijin” must do in his home country.
‘Nakamura should be stronger in spirit and brush off racism just as many “gaijin” must do in his home country.’
Wrong. The authorities should act and the media should highlight the issue. In Japan, in Slovakia and everywhere else.
No Dave, the FA do a lot. Didn’t you know that, every month or so, they make all the players walk onto the pitch with a little red card in their hands? The players all line up and ‘show racism the red card’, whereupon racism, as if by magic, disappears. Sometimes, there are variations on this theme, with slogans like ‘kick racism out of football’.
I was at a Zilina-Slovan game last April and the stadium announcer had to ask Slovan fans FIVE TIMES to stop racially abusing the black players in the Zilina team. Apparently, the announcer must have the fourth official’s say-so to do this, so the incidents must have been in the referee’s official report. Thus, it follows, the FA ‘had to’ act. I don’t know what they did because NOT ONE Slovak media outlet even reported that there’d been an incident – either at the time or when whatever punishment was handed out. One paper (either Pravda or SME, I forget which) carried a video of the game highlights on its webpage, on which one of the announcer’s warnings was clearly audible. Yet no mention at all of the incidents in the accompanying match report.
UEFA are probably even worse, though. A Paris St Germain player got the monkey chants at Slovan in Sept 2011. No mention at all in their delegates’ match report. As for their response to the abuse England’s U-21s got in Serbia, well, best not go there….
So it’s not only Slovak FA, it’s Slovak media, fans, clubs, UEFA…. But good on Yuki Nakumura for at least making his story known.
Why don’t the Slovak FA do something about this and other “fan” problems?
Making a few teams play behind locked gates may produce some reflection from both the clubs and their fans on their attitude and behaviour. Or does the FA in the title refer to what they actually do?