Stop racism at football matches |30 July 2013

During a St Roch v/s Côte d’Or match earlier this season, one of the greatest local players this country has ever produced, Alpha Baldé (playing for St Roch at the time), was subject to racial slurs by a female supporter whereby he was constantly being called a ‘monkey’.

I spoke to Baldé and he confirmed that this incident did indeed happen and he stopped playing during that match to give that supporter a piece of his mind.

Baldé added that he was fed up of all this for this is how he has been treated by a few supporters throughout his career where he has never once been protected by the officials but has rather been sent off a few times for responding to these abuses. This, he said, is one of the reasons why he decided to stop playing competitively and rather have fun with beach football. I made a comment about this incident on my Facebook page back then where it became a highly debatable topic. One person even added that these sorts of incidents also occur at volleyball and basketball matches where still nothing is being done to punish the culprits.

A similar incident surfaced during our match (The Lions v/s Côte d’Or) on Saturday whereby racial comments (about his nationality) were also made about our Gabonese player Tony Mussikoue. This time by a male supporter. Our goalkeeping coach confronted this individual after the match telling him that this is not acceptable in sports.

I truly believe that clubs do everything possible to speak to their supporters but there will always be a minority who don’t care to listen. I also believe that many people don’t really know what racism means. Hence, I feel all clubs should join forces with the authorities to tackle this long-standing issue once and for all for we do not want to see a situation where players walk off the field like it is constantly happening in Italy. Let us kick racism out of our sports!

Joël de Commarmond