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Which is worse? A group of international footballers singing an explicitly racist ‘celebratory’ song that references several of their club teammates, or a senior politician trying to justify those comments? Enzo Fernandez, the Chelsea and Argentina star who posted the vile clip from the team bus after Argentina’s Copa America win, at least had the decency to apologise for streaming what was sung. Not so Victoria Villarruel, Argentina’s vice-president, who poured gallons of fuel on the flames with her incendiary comments on the matter.
“No colonialist country is going to intimidate us for a song on the pitch or for telling the truths they don’t want to admit,” she said on her X account. “Argentina is a sovereign and free country. We never had colonies or second-class citizens. We have never imposed our way of life on anyone.
“But neither will we tolerate that they do it to us … Enzo I support you, Messi, thanks for everything! Argentinians always hold your head up high.”
Since Messi wasn’t even on the team bus, bringing his name in was merely cheap populism. But that a deputy head of state would use such language to defend the indefensible speaks volumes of the society she represents. The song, which we won’t dignify by repeating here, was sung by Argentina football fans after the 2022 World Cup final, and speaks of the mothers and fathers of French footballers, and how their passports are just a sham.
More than anything else, it betrays that the singers skipped history and geography classes in school. Angola was never a French colony, and those with roots there are far more likely to play for Portugal, whose colony it was. Similarly, those of Nigerian ancestry typically end up playing for England, not France.
There is a school of apologists who ask what is factually wrong is what was sung. Is it merely coincidence that the song references only those with African origins? What makes it even more vile is that Argentina is a country of immigrants. There isn’t a single member of the playing XI who can claim ‘pure’ indigenous roots. Each of their ancestors set sail from some port in Italy or Spain.
But apparently, the antecedents of other players in the French squad don’t matter. The song doesn’t reference Antoine Griezmann’s German family on his father’s side, or that his mother has Portuguese roots. You only need to look at a picture of Griezmann and, more importantly, his skin tone to understand why.
That these chants come from Argentina shouldn’t surprise anyone either. Unlike Brazil where more than half the population is either Pardo (mixed race) or black, nearly 80 per cent of Argentines claim European ancestry. It’s even higher in Uruguay (88 per cent), which might explain why Luis Suarez thought nothing of calling Patrice Evra the N word.
Football players don’t grow up in a bubble. Their attitudes reflect those of the societies they’re raised in. But what is unforgiveable is when clubs or national associations attempt to defend players who use such slurs. Liverpool’s conduct during the Suarez-Evra episode was despicable – printing T-shirts in support was a spectacular own goal – and one can only hope Chelsea don’t go down that same road. Wesley Fofana’s very public response to what Fernandez posted should prevent that.
This is also nothing to do with age or immaturity. Oleg Blokhin, the greatest outfield player in the Soviet Union’s football history, winner of the Ballon d’Or in 1975 and, later, manager of the Ukraine national team, was well over 50 when he treated us to this gem. “The more Ukrainians that play in the national league, the more examples for the young generation,” he said. “Let them learn from [Andrei] Shevchenko or Blokhin and not from some zumba-bumba whom they took off a tree, gave him two bananas and now he plays in the Ukrainian League…”
If there’s someone that doesn’t find that problematic, they need to a long, hard gaze in the mirror, at the racist looking back.