Kean, Bonucci incident underlines the depth of soccer’s racism problem

The reaction to Cagliari fans’ racist abuse Moise Kean on Tuesday underlines the depth of soccer’s problem.

On Tuesday, not for the first time this season, not even close to the first time this season, the dominant story following a Serie A match was the racist abuse directed by home supporters at an away side’s player.

In this case, Moise Kean was the victim, Cagliari’s fans the racists. Kean had been subject to abuse throughout the game, but it reached its height in the 85th minute, when he celebrated scoring Juventus’ second goal in front of Cagliari’s fans.

All of these incidents seem to follow roughly the same pattern — a player is abused, officials offer various mealy-mouthed condemnations of the behavior, occasionally (but not always) a punishment is doled out, nothing changes and in a few months everyone does it all over again.

And yet all these incidents also seem to have their own unique element, whether it be the reaction of the referee or the fans, the (non-)apology offered by the relevant governing bodies or any of the other ways racism’s infinite variations can reveal themselves.

The variation on Tuesday came in the form of Leonardo Bonucci’s post-match interview, in which he suggested Kean was responsible for the abuse, and that he shouldn’t have taunted Cagliari’s fans in the way he did (despite the fact they had been racially abusing him all game).

There’s not much to be gained from analyzing Bonucci’s comments (which he has since tried to erase with an extraordinarily transparent Instagram post); he was wrong, Kean wasn’t, this isn’t a discussion. Still, the response to his comments was revealing.

Raheem Sterling is the most high-profile player to offer his support to Kean and to criticize Bonucci. Mario Balotelli did the same, as did Memphis Depay. Blaise Matuidi, Kean’s teammate and a victim of racist abuse by Cagliari fans last season, protested during the game.

https://twitter.com/sterling7/status/1113426591462371328

Of course all of these players have something in common: They’re black. The response from their white teammates has been, in contrast, extremely limited, and those who have supported Kean don’t seem to have gone so far as to call out Bonucci.

There is no easy way to eliminate racism in stadiums, whether those stadiums are in Italy or anywhere else. Banning fans is a start, but as John Barnes has said, these people don’t simply become racists when they take their seats in the stands. This is a societal problem.

What is comparatively easy, however, is expecting more from white players, and calling out those who don’t give it. Bonucci is an extreme example, but even Max Allegri’s post-match comments were troubling.

He told reporters, “ … the chants are not from the whole stadium. There are imbeciles at football games like there are in everyday life. There are TV cameras here, so they should be found and dealt with.” He went on to praise Kean and Matuidi’s “maximum intelligence.”

Allegri’s not wrong, and this is a reasonable, manageable first step for the authorities to take, but he’s equivocating here. There is no mention of the word racism. The problem is restricted to a few fans. Kean is praised for showing restraint even though he’d be perfectly entitled not to.

And neither is Allegri the first manager to take this approach. Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp both said more or less the same when Raheem Sterling was racially abused by Chelsea fans back in December.

Gareth Southgate went a little further when several England players were subject to racist abuse during their Euro 2020 qualifier against Montenegro last week, but even he spoke about “what’s happened” and “things” rather than racism.

It would be unreasonable to expect every, or even any, football manager to be able to offer a nuanced analysis of racism, let alone to offer a viable solution to the problem. This is not their job, after all.

But it does not require any great quantity of moral clarity or strength to call monkey chants directed at a black player “racist,” and to point out that racism is bad. Too often, white players and managers, even those trying to offer support, fail to clear even that low bar.

Kean, Sterling, Balotelli, Depay, Matuidi and too many other black players to name deserve credit for standing up for themselves, for calling out this abuse for what it is and for empowering others to do the same.

It has been especially heartening to see young players like Sterling and now, perhaps, Kean find their voice and become leaders in the fight against racism. Unfortunately, commendable as their courage is, it has only served to underline the cowardice of so many of their white counterparts.