Nicklas Bendtner’s fine: UEFA’s approach to racism isn’t hypocritical – it’s all part of the package

Denmark striker Nicklas Bendtner has been fined 100,000 euros and banned for one match for showing his pants. The Croatian FA has been fined a lesser amount for racist chanting at a recent Euro 2012 match. People have duly reacted against this disparity in punishments. A much-retweeted sardonic comment laid it out thus: “UEFA fines: £45,000 Spain 2004 (racism); £16,500 Serbia 2007 (racism); £10,000 Croatia 2008 (racism). €100,000 Bendtner (exposing pants).”

Some have responded with incredulity: how can UEFA be against racism and yet treat it less seriously than a bit of alleged ‘guerrilla marketing’? For the more world-weary, it was a cynical lament: of course the football authorities care more about money than social responsibility. In either case, the point is clear: UEFA’s priorities are out-of-whack. The Bendtner case is just further illustration of that hypocrisy.

But to bemoan the way in which UEFA’s ostentatious anti-racism is undermined by evidence of a comparatively more forthright attitude to enforcing corporate branding guidelines misses the point. Football has been privatised. Free speech – crucial to the public sphere – is now at the discretion of football’s bosses. Punishment can be as arbitrary
as they like.

Many would agree that football bureaucrats are motivated by pecuniary concerns. We can lament this fact. We can be ‘Against Modern Football,’ as the ultras’ slogan across Europe has it. But for the foreseeable future, elite football is commercialised and commodified. The recent three-billion pound Premier League television rights deal
is a case in point.

But it would be a mistake to assume there is a pristine anti-racism campaign being corrupted, marginalised or overshadowed by modern football’s money-grubbing. Rather, the coexistence of institutional anti-racism and corporate toadying present no contradiction; they are part and parcel of the same. The organisation that issues fines for incorrect fan behaviour is the same that stringently polices corporate branding.

The squeaky-clean image UEFA – and FIFA – try to project is typically corporate and consequently multicultural. Its consumers and its employees, like its clients and sponsors, are global, diverse, heterogenous. There is no place for racism and other forms of discrimination. It’s very obviously bad-for-business.

The institutions which run football have effectively privatised football. An intrinsically public – because spectated upon – leisure pursuit has been transformed over the years into the private domain of those corporate bureaucracies. We can call it ‘our’ game, but at a professional level, it is very much ‘theirs’.

We should not therefore be surprised to find speech being tightly controlled. This includes corporate speech (as in the case of Bendtner’s underpants-based marketing) as much as it does fan expression at the game (from justified protests against unscrupulous club owners to unacceptable racist chanting).

The challenge today, for those disturbed by increasing control over football, is to demand that football be made ‘public’. When the people’s game is transformed into a private concern, the authorities can call the shots on what happens well beyond the pitch.

Compare the workplace context. There, employers curtail the speech of employees. That is because it is formally ‘private’ – a miniature fiefdom. A boss could try to sack an employee for, say, leafleting about exploitative working conditions. And just as we would be appalled by that and argue for the right for free expression and assembly, we should do likewise in football.

That means not just recoiling at the governing bodies’ apparent prioritisation of lucre over ethics. It means arguing that these organisations should not be allowed to police speech of any sort. Instances of racism in football are a disgrace. But it is for fans, as a community, to struggle against – not for the authorities to ban. When football’s governing institutions are ridiculed for generally cack-handed management, expecting them to then lead the fight against racism in society is an absurd proposition. Beyond governing the game and its rules, the authorities should butt-out.

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• http://twitter.com/LongBallsLarry Alex

  Your comment sort of exemplifies the problem:

  State and non-state authorities cannot eradicate racism by diktat or through coercive means. It’s absurd to think that. All they can do is remove racism from public view, merely ‘driving it underground’.

  As for not running like private concerns, FIFA made a billion dollars in profit from the last world cup. TV rights and sponsorship brought in $3.2bn.

  Police the game? Sure, in the sense of enforcing the rules of the game and so on. But policing fans? No thanks.

• myguitarwantstokillyourmama

  Are “the authorities” only UEFA and FIFA, or a nation state as well?

  I think it is facetious to suggest that there is no link between speech and action. Racist chanting is an aggressive act, which is associated with other aggressive acts.

  Quite apart from that: should we just ask players to accept disgusting abuse aspart of their role? I wouldn’t accept it in my workplace.
  Should we expose children in stadia/watching on TV to such behaviours because we have accepted a libertarian premise that everyone can do as they wish or because we don’t like that UEFA make money and regulate the game?

• ebh79

  Racism exists in all parts of the globe. It is alway ugly and should always be resisted.
  Don’t you find it suspicious that not one racist murder has taken place in these two countries? Really? Not one in 20 years? Even with all that friction between ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in the east? I don’t know how the authorities in Poland and Ukraine deal with racism, but UEFA’s reaction, both to recent events and in the past has been underwhelming.
  Britain’s efforts to clean itself up have been long, arduous and not entirely successful. But it is making an effort, hence the existance of the statistics you quote.

• Farweasel

  It certainly does …………. when you prize money over humanity.

• http://adventuresandjapes.wordpress.com/ Adventures and Japes

  Well exactly, we’re talking about professional footballers still, right?