Kudos to AS Roma’s Newspaper Editor for Fighting Homegrown Anti-Semitism

It’s an unfortunate and abhorrent reality that football stadiums throughout the world are often used as breeding grounds for hatred and bigotry. I wish that team owners and management as well as national federations would do more to combat this.

Take for example the growing scourge of anti-semitic and Neo-Nazi sentiments that have recently been displayed by some (so-called) fans at Roma’s Stadio Olimpico. In response to this abominable behavior, the Italian Football League’s disciplinary committee ordered that the team’s next home game would be played on a neutral ground without spectators.

But the editor of the team’s fan newspaper Il Romanista took another, perhaps more direct approach at changing the hearts and minds of some of the team’s less enlightened supporters. He decided to give away copies of the Academy Award-winning film “Life is Beautiful” starring Italian Roberto Benigni.

It’s a poignant story about a Jewish family sent to an Italian concentration camp during WWII. The question is, will coldhearted Neo-Nazis even bother to take the time to watch it. For if they do, they’ll quickly learn that the extermination of human beings is unconscionable…that is…if they have any heart whatsoever.

Unfortunately, I believe that although this is a step in the right direction, more deliberate actions must be taken to rid soccer stadiums of racism and hatred. Football, after all, is the peoples’ game. There is no single sport in the world as egalitarian as the one which we collectively cherish. It’s an affront to the very nature of this all-inclusive game that any person or group should promote an ideal that runs counter to this. And to those who disagree, I argue that there is no room for your xenophobia in football (or for that matter the world).

It’s high time that FIFA, UEFA, and all authorities that govern this sport take a VERY hard line with these racist thugs. Those who promote hatred should be forever banned from participating in organized competitions at ALL levels EVERYWHERE, whether they be athletes, spectators, or whatever. OUR GAME HAS NO ROOM FOR THOSE WHO PREACH HATE!

Until next time…

peace,
ac