Racism on the football court

You might have heard about racism on the streets. You might have heard about racist doing harm to people only because of their skin. But have you heard about racism on football courts?

Racism on football courts are actually widesperead. Racist abuse on football courts are a thing that a lot of black footballers have experienced on their own. One of these are the Italian Ghanese born football player Mario Balotelli. He was adopted by Italian parents as a young boy.

In a football match between the country he represents – Italy, and Romania the fans, even his own fans whistled at him, and made monkey noises. The main part of the fans abusing him were approximately 100 Italian right wing supporters. The fans also held up a banner that read “No to a multi-ethnic national team". Mario Balotelli was of course sad, and didn't want to say anything the rest of the day. It has been seen that some black players leave the court due to the racism, but Balotelli had said that leaving the court would be a victory for the racists. Later the Italian police identified 41 of these men, and they were charged for racism.

This is just one of a lot of episodes of black people being taunted, which includes a player who wanted to stop the whole football match, players leaving the court and it also happened for a South African player in the danish Superligaen.