Nip racism in the bud

Dingilizwe Ntuli
DESPITE some people’s strong beliefs that the age-old discrimination method has been put to rest, racism remains widespread and deeply entrenched in amateur and professional sport the world over.

Although sport is supposed to send out powerful messages of harmony and goodwill, most players of colour in virtually every sport worldwide have one way or the other experienced this bigotry both on and off the field.

Even celebrated sports stars have not been spared this bigotry regardless of playing for some of the biggest and richest clubs in the world.

Racism is good as a means, but not an end. Does the end justify the means, and the answer is only when you are out of other options. So racism is probably good when out of options to retain integrity.

Who can forget the visuals of FC Barcelona rightback Dani Alves’ response to a banana being thrown at him by an opposition fan, as he prepared to take a corner kick during the second half of the match against Villarreal, in April 2014?

Alves nonchalantly picked up the banana, peeled it and ate it before carrying on with the game.

His unconventional reaction to the obvious racist abuse sparked a social media campaign against racism, with scores of his fellow professionals backing his decision to eat the banana.

English Premiership champions Chelsea’s captain, John Terry, was banned for four matches and fined £220,000 by the Football Association after being found guilty of racially abusing Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand during a league match in 2012.

Terry had earlier been cleared by a magistrates’ court on a criminal charge after being accused of using abusive and insulting words and behaviour, which included a reference to colour or race towards Ferdinand.

In the same year, former Liverpool and now Barcelona frontman Luis Suárez was fined and suspended for making abusive remarks directed at former Manchester United leftback Patrice Evra in a tense Premiership clash.

Wealthy National Basketball Association outfit Los Angeles Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, was last year recorded making racist remarks to his girlfriend about her association with minorities. This was after she had posted a picture of herself with basketball legend Magic Johnson on Instagram.

“It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to? You can sleep with (black people), you can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that . . . and not to bring them to my games,” Sterling was quoted as saying.

These accusations were dealt with promptly and both the accused and accusers moved on.

On the home front, it emerged last week that former Zimbabwe cricket captain, Prosper Utseya, levelled allegations of racism against ZC’s director of international and domestic (first class) cricket and commercial affairs Alastair Campbell.

The allegations were contained in a letter Utseya wrote to the ZC after the Cricket World Cup in March and leaked to the media last week, reopening the racial fault lines in the domestic game, resulting in the board launching an inquest.

Once upon a time, the Zimbabwe national cricket team was dominated by white players until 2004 when the majority of them either left or were fired following a misunderstanding with the board over its composition.

It is no secret that Utseya and the current crop of national team players are beneficiaries of that 2004 change. They were blooded into the team ahead of their time and in 2006, Utseya was appointed captain, taking over from wicketkeeper batsman Tatenda Taibu.

Utseya captained Zimbabwe for close to four years, which included 67 One-Day Internationals and 10 Twenty20 international matches before he resigned in 2010 in the interest of the “team’s future development”.

He continued to avail himself for national selection and performed fairly well each time with bat and ball, but his leaked letter accusing Campbell of racism contains disturbing allegations.

He alleged Campbell had a “personal agenda” against him, which led to his non-selection in the playing 11 at this year’s World Cup despite being in the squad.

Utseya pointed out that he has been quiet for too long while a lot of wrong was happening in Zimbabwe cricket and then goes on to list a litany of allegations, some of which are five years old.

While the allegations Utseya raised may be genuine, the fact that it took him five years to point to some forms of racism that he felt affected him and the team, is of major concern.

Why? Because genuine as the allegations may be, the lengthy period it took him to open up makes it rather difficult to direct any sympathy his way.

For example, why did Utseya wait until 2015 to reveal that he had been forced out as captain in 2010, as he claims today?

In fact, he must shoulder part of the blame for what went wrong during the period he is complaining about because his allegations could have been addressed then had he raised them.

What does informing captain Elton Chigumbura that he was just a stop-gap captain when he replaced Utseya in 2010 meant to achieve?

Why didn’t Utseya simply indicate while stepping down in 2010 that he had been pushed out because Campbell felt a white coach couldn’t work with a black captain, as he claims now?

It’s baffling because Utseya was complimentary of the very set he now accuses when he stepped down five years ago.

A national cricket captain must not be lily-livered, but principled to the point of losing his place in the side for the sake of honour.

In this regard, Utseya failed and whatever the outcome of the ongoing ZC probe into his allegations, one inevitable outcome is plunging the national team into crisis.

Of course all forms of racism are a crime against humanity and should be treated as such, but I find it an absurdity to accept that Utseya could cover up such crimes for five years.

Utseya should have helped nip the problem in the bud, but instead, he gave the alleged evil five years to take root.

Racism destroys people and it is our responsibility to ensure that we red-card it whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head, and had Utseya not been complicit, ZC would certainly have weeded it way back.