I am sorry but what you say seems not to consider what the facts are.
Almost all of the French players of african origin have played in the
italian clubs
and are beloved by italian supporters, including Zidane.
That evening we said that it was a Juventus meeting, because most of
the players
on both sides belonged to the same club (Juventus).
If you watch the match you will see most of the time players from the 2
sides speaking friendly
with each other helped by the fact that the French players who played
in Italy can speak italian.
That was a bad affair for everybody and I am sure Materazzi regrets it
as much as Zidane.
What is worst is elucubrating and trying to find a "systemic problem".
I am not personally a fan of any team and I don't watch football that
much
but I can't be silent when reading such things.
In addition to this, what's happening in Italian football at the moment
has to do only with how the referees were chosen
in the italian championship and we are all waiting to see what happens.
This should be an economists' forum, and ecomony has the bad appellative
of being the dismal science because it is based on facts.
Massimo
On 14/lug/06, at 04:51, paul phillips wrote:
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>
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