Colombian football, on alert due to Fifa measures against racism

Fifa He is on the edge with racism in football. Last weekend there were new outbreaks with insults towards footballers, which caused the president himself Gianni Infantino insisted on his audacious proposal of loss of points for the teams whose fans incur the offenses. The new announcement shook world football and in Colombia the team leaders take note and view the measure with caution.

“In addition to the three-step process – match stopped, match resumed and match abandoned – we have to implement an automatic loss for the team whose fans have committed racist acts and caused the match to be abandoned, as well as bans on access to stadiums of all kinds. the world and criminal charges for racists,” declared Infantino after there were racist insults against Milan goalkeeper Mike Maignan and against Coventry player Kasey Palmer.

Scope of measurement

In Colombia, racism in football is not a detected behavior, except on sporadic occasions. However, the teams are alert to these demonstrations and to the Fifa proposal. The main concern of the leaders is how this measure of automatic defeat could be implemented so that it is fair and is not sanctioned by mistake.

In this regard, the president of Dimayor, Fernando Jaramillo, He commented: “It's not that easy, but it could be done. Reform of the Disciplinary Code, statutes, regulations would be needed. Many things, and here any shout could be confused. I think that racist actions are not seen in the stands here, to be honest. Individually it can be,” said Jaramillo.

The teams have several questions, the main one has to do with justice in the sanction. “The complex thing will be to define in which cases people or actions that could harm a team could be manipulated. In football anything can be possible and we must be certain about events,” he commented. Ignacio Martanpresident of Inter de Palmira, formerly Cortuluá.

In the same sense it is Carlos Mario Zuluaga, president of La Equidad. “It is important that it is clear what the trial would be like. I don't see it as very viable that the teams bear the weight of the blame, unless they are confrontations between countries. Judging with a loss of points seems very drastic to me,” he said. And he added: “When it is in the stands you don't know if it can be provoked by the visiting team, how does that affect the result? In sports law, judging that is very complicated.”

Fifa protocol recommends three steps when faced with racist shouts. First the game is stopped and the attendees are announced. Secondly, the players leave the field of play and the fans are warned. It resumes. Thirdly, if the attacks continue, the match will stop and in that case the three points will go to the opponent, as Infantino has insisted regarding the wave of racism against the Brazilian Vinicius.

Enrique Camacho, president of Millonarios, does not see that racism is an underlying issue in Colombian soccer, but warns: “It has a dangerous connotation and is the identification of which fans and which team committed the offenses. Many times there may be fans who insult to eliminate the opponent. I find it very difficult to control.”

For its part, Tulio Castrillón, president of Once Caldas, commented: “The first thing is that the weight of the sanction falls on the offender, that is, the person. That institutions or clubs be obliged to lead educational promotion and prevention campaigns where these types of acts are rejected. However, I find the applicability here difficult to implement. How do you ensure that the offender actually belongs to the team and is not used as a way to obtain victories under that rule?… If there is concrete evidence that racist behavior comes Some of the club would agree with the automatic defeat, but there is no objectivity for that here.”

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