When Activism and Sport Crosses

“Say no to racism” campaigns and walk-offs in UEFA matches. Players in leagues all over the world were protesting against racism. Several teams in COVID times especially were being faced with racist comments from officials and fans in the stadiums. When words of such nature were being thrown around players knew they had to fight back in some way. This is when the walk-offs started happening. Players retaliated against racism peacefully just by not playing until the issue was resolved. The players choosing not to play made organizations like FIFA and UEFA were forced to deal with the issue. Since their top players were choosing not to play they had to act fast and put some policies in place to help deal with fan comments.

One major event happened in 2020 when a racist comment was made by an official during the game. This led to both teams Paris-Saint Germain and Istanbul Basaksehir walking right off the field in the middle of the game. Another example of these players fighting back was in 2019 England’s National Team was debating not going onto the field since they could hear racist chants outside. They debated something like this during a Champions League game that has more value but they still had activism on their mind.

These movements pushed FIFA and UEFA to change regulations. FIFA updated the three-step protocol that was updated in 2019 after the incident with England’s National Team. The UEFA has a regulation named Article 14 that bans any player, fan, official, or coach will be banned from ten-plus matches if caught making any racist remarks.