There seems to be a systemic problem here. I have heard for a number of
years about racisim in the Italian soccer world and particular racism
directed against the French team which has a disproportionate number of
African (origin) and Islamic (origin) players, most of which I
understand are second generation 'immigrants' from former French
colonies. I watched the Italian player grab Zidane's shirt preventing
the French player from making a play and thought that the Italian should
have been yellow carded for the deliberate infraction. I am not
surprised, therefore, when the referees let it pass, that Zidane
responded in an admitedly undisciplined moment, with a physical response
to the Italian's second verbal assault. This would seem to be the
result of a failure of the refereeing.
Italian soccer appears, to what one can see from afar, to be
rampant in corruption and racism. (note the game fixing scandal). It
would seem to be a travesty of justice to fix upon an overpressured
French player, possibly the best player in the world, rather than the
real villains in the piece, a racist and perhaps corrupt Italian team,
and inept officiating.
Paul P
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
On Jul 13, 2006, at 7:05 PM, Massimo Portolani wrote:
May be you dind't hear Zidane himself saying that the so called
provocation had nothing to do with racism but rather with his sister.
To be honest I feel that this nonsense about italian racism is quite
Well, if it's sexist name-calling against Zidane's sister, it still
doesn't do any credit to Materazzi and the Italian team, if it's
true, though Materazzi denies that he has said anything insulting.
FIFA is said to have opened disciplinary proceedings against
Materazzi on the matter:
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/13/
AR2006071300546.html>.
Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.0/388 - Release Date: 7/13/06
