Racism, now what?

"Vinicius you are a monkey, you are a monkey, Vinicius you are a monkey", is the shameful chant that hundreds of fans sang on Sunday before the derby in the vicinity of the Civitas Metropolitano.

Inside the stadium the chant was: “Vinicius die”.

When the public address system requested to stop, the south end responded by throwing lighters and objects onto the field.

LaLiga has denounced the racist chants before the State Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport (which meets this Thursday).

The Congress, for its part, presented on Tuesday an institutional declaration signed by all the groups in which it condemns the racist insults to the Brazilian Real Madrid player and in which it urges the League, UEFA, FIFA, teams and soccer players to continue committing themselves with the eradication of racism and intolerance.

That, together with the statements by the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez — "as an Atlético fan I expected a strong message from the rojiblanco club" — forced Atlético to issue a statement 48 hours after the events.

Late and forced.

And now that?

Will this all to one put an end to the racist episodes in football?

Will the clubs that have not yet done so take sides to publicly denounce these behaviors each and every time they occur?

Will they make preventive appeals to make the fans aware and to behave?

Will they dare to kick the ultras out of their stadiums like Florentino Pérez and Joan Laporta did?

Esteban Ibarra is president of the Movement against Intolerance, Racism and Xenophobia and he is not very optimistic about it.

And he speaks knowingly.

He cites the long history of episodes of the rojiblanco ultras and says that, although he is not aware that all those who were yelling "monkey" at Vinicius outside the stadium were ultras, they have a "nest entrenched there" that drags on the others, on and off the field and on social media.

“It was obvious that this would end up exploding sooner or later, but it rains on wet.

The problem of the ultras of Atlético has been chronic for many years, since before the crime of Aitor Zabaleta, the Real Sociedad supporter assassinated in the surroundings of the Vicente Calderón in 1998. And I even remember having discussed it with Jesús Gil that a debate television gave me the reason saying that those people \[the ultras\] are scoundrels and criminals... But hey, they have continued to be located there even after the death of Jimmy [a Deportivo de La Coruña fan who died in 2014 after a fight with radicals from Atlético] and this year there have been several episodes,” he says.

Everything remains the same.

That is why Ibarra – who recalls that on December 1 the trial of 82 Atlético and Deportivo ultras who organized the massive fight in the vicinity of the Calderón that ended with Jimmy's death will begin – believes that this will continue to be the case.

“Let's see if this one wins... But for something to change, all those responsible who have [sanctioning] authority over the act have to apply the law rigorously and it is not being done.

On the one hand, the Hate Crimes Prosecutor has to intervene.

The State Anti-Violence Commission has to intervene, but what has been shown in all this time is that there is a lot of laxity.

Files are opened that end up not materializing, they are delayed in time and the sanctions do not arrive.

The clubs, on the other hand, have their own responsibility that they are not fulfilling.

What has changed this time and that Ibarra celebrates is that Congress has taken a position —he thinks it's late— and has unanimously condemned racist insults.

And that can be a measure of pressure that makes there be no turning back.

Iñigo Errejón, deputy for Más País, who promoted the institutional declaration in Congress on Tuesday, is convinced of this.

Errejón tells in a telephone conversation with this newspaper that this statement will mark a “before and after”.

He explains it this way: “They have even told me that Vinicius worries me because I am from Madrid.

And no, what worries me is that a lot of people play soccer, kids who go down to play in the park or on the school playground tomorrow and when they don't pass the ball to one, or they miss a goal, or they get angry with another ,

It turns out that as they have seen it on TV they have understood that it is normal to tell someone that they are a fucking black or a monkey.

And no.

We have to focus on it, Tuesday was symbolic, but it marks a before and after because we are not going to act as if this did not happen.

We are not going to look the other way and normalize things that are not normal”.

Errejón considers that this has contributed to increasing pressure towards clubs that tolerate such behavior.

"Now let's see who gets tired first...".

Ask all levels to get involved.

“We must urge the authorities in this regard, the League, the Anti-Violence Commission, clubs… to take action.

If the League, imagine, applied a field and economic sanction, I am convinced that some clubs would take it more seriously.

You have to push those clubs, because they are more comfortable looking elsewhere.

If harsher measures are adopted that squeeze them, they will have every interest in putting limits on a good part of the groups that live from having club facilities to move around, from having rooms to store material inside the stadiums,

that they finance themselves by selling tickets that the clubs give them because for a long time it was convenient for them to have a group that was always cheering.

But that cannot be at any price.

What could not be at any price was very clear to Joan Laporta and Florentino Pérez, for example, who expelled the ultras from the Camp Nou (2003) and the Bernabéu (2014).

In both cases the personal cost was important: in the case of the president of Madrid there were slogans asking for his resignation on several bridges on the M-30 and even the desecration with graffiti on the grave of his wife.

And in the case of Laporta, there were death threats against his children.

They did not give their arm to twist.

The Anti-Violence Commission, which is the one that proposes the administrative sanctions, meets this Thursday.

But, they clarify from the Higher Sports Council (CSD) that without recorded images that identify the authors of the insults it is impossible to sanction.

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