It’s 2019 in Serie A – where racism is rife and the league just shrugs

On Sunday evening, Inter won a penalty at Cagliari’s Sardegna Arena and Romelu Lukaku was given the chance to put his new club in the lead. As Lukaku walked up to take the spot kick, a large section of Cagliari supporters made monkey noises behind the goal.

In such situations, black players are often advised to leave the pitch and take a stand. But I’m uncomfortable with telling a victim that they must change their behaviour. Lukaku’s preference was to take and score the penalty, stare down those supporters and then issue an eloquent statement pleading for an adequate response and crackdown on such lamentable abuse. You will not break me; I will beat you.

By Monday, Cagliari released their predictable statement demanding a stop to racist abuse in the stands. That might be worthy of some praise were Cagliari not the club who have repeatedly proven themselves incapable of tackling the problem.

In 2009, Mario Balotelli was racially abused by Cagliari fans. In 2010, Samuel Eto’o was racially abused by Cagliari fans. In 2017, Sulley Muntari was racially abused by Cagliari fans. In 2018, Blaise Matuidi was racially abused by Cagliari fans. In 2019, Moise Kean was racially abused by Cagliari fans. In that climate, a statement is meaningless. Inaction speaks louder than words.

Racism from the top down

By Tuesday, Serie A made a new anti-racism drive in which each of the 20 clubs to nominate a player to join a body launched in an attempt to stamp out racism: a vague initiative that fails to punish the perpetrators fully. Perhaps Juventus could nominate Leonardo Bonucci, who last season opined that blame should be apportioned “50-50” between Cagliari supporters (the racists) and Kean (the racially abused). Bonucci backtracked on those comments after outcry.

Serie A’s disciplinary judge Gerardo Mastrandrea did not even use the word “racist” in his weekly report on the league’s events, instead making reference to news reports that implied sensationalism. The league did not impose any sanction upon Cagliari for the incidents involving Muntari, Matuidi or Kean. They are yet to decide whether to do so here.

This is surely a case for the Italian football federation (FIGC), then. But you’ll forgive Lukaku for not holding his breath. This is an organisation whose president between 2014 and 2017 was Carlo Tavecchio, the man who couldn’t start his job until his Fifa ban had ended. That punishment followed Tavecchio describing how fictitious foreign player ‘Opti Poba’ would be “eating bananas before joining Lazio”. Tavecchio was later recorded discussing “lousy Jews” and saying that it would “be better to keep gays away from me”, which led to no further punishment.

Tavecchio did eventually resign from his role, but only because Italy failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. Footballing flaws are apparently far more important than moral defects.

Entrenched problem

At least Lukaku could rely upon the support of his own club and their supporters, who presumably rallied round their new centre forward to try and ease the pain felt by such overt racism. Well, until Wednesday that is, when Inter’s Ultras posted a statement on their Facebook page excusing the behaviour of Cagliari fans via the ‘just banter’ defence. It wasn’t racist to make monkey noises at Lukaku because they were trying to put him off his game, and all’s fair in love, war and football.

Deliberately or otherwise, that sends a message to Lukaku that the right to be racist is a more entrenched – and therefore acceptable – part of Italian football culture than the right to not be racially abused. It is one (disgusting) thing to rely upon rampant tribalism to excuse the shortcomings of your own, but another entirely to do the same for opposition supporters. There is the headline: Players of colour – expect to be debased.

Racism is a systemic problem within Italian football in part because racism is a systemic problem in Italian society, and Italy is not alone. But that is merely a statement of fact rather than an excuse, and to use it so would be a complete abdication of responsibility. Football is a reflection of society, but also a highly influential cultural medium. It has deliberately passed up the chance to take the lead and take a stand.

Cagliari should suffer a points deduction. Their stadium should be closed until those responsible for the chanting are identified and issued with effective banning orders. There is no reasonable argument against either of those measures. Anything less, and Serie A and the FIGC are complicit in continued racist abuse of players of colour.

‘Ladies and gentlemen it’s 2019,’ said Lukaku in his statement this week. He’s right: it’s 2019 in Italian football. Which means racism is rife and clubs, people in positions of responsibility and governing bodies lack the enthusiasm to solve it. “If you don’t like it, move” is the implicit advice.