Ballon d’Or 2024: Vinicius Junior and the fight against racism in football

The Ballon d’Or 2024 ceremony will take place this Monday, October 28, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. Team success on the field and individual awards such as the Ballon d’Or (for the best football player on the planet) help confirm and reinforce their status as superstars, sporting idols and social role models.

In men’s football, the election or non-election of Real Madrid’s Vinicius Júnior is a good opportunity to examine his emergence as a focal point of the anti-racist struggle in current Spanish football and to raise the need for expanded opportunities and strategies. Some questions are relevant.

In Spanish men’s football, the rivalry between Barcelona and Real Madrid creates a “we” dynamic against them” is usually supported by competing nationalist discourses. And sports journalism plays a fundamental role in becoming an ultrafan. This journalism seeks an audience with epic and emotional discourse, without the need for substantiated football arguments. And the audience moves in a similar dynamic.

It is therefore foreseeable that if Vinicius Junior wins the Ballon d’Or, the media and social networks will be filled with hate speech. We will receive thousands of messages attacking him as a provocateur, an overrated footballer, the worst Ballon d’Or in history and all sorts of racist scorn. At the same time, many other messages will value the success of the best player in the world, disdaining and insulting any criticism of the footballer and focusing their speeches against FC Barcelona.

If he doesn’t win the Ballon d’Or, Vinicius will likely be attacked with parodies and memes filled with contempt, slander and insults. In turn, his followers will criticize the unfair decision, argued in conspiratorial persecution of the footballer, his club, his fans… This is a monochromatic dualism turned into a powerful interpretative structure of the media and audience, divided into fans and haters.

Is Vinicius an example in the fight against racism?

Football recreates footballers as role models turned sporting idols. They become ideal representatives of public morality. These heroes represent what we should be and want to be like. As such, they must reflect ideal values ​​and behaviors and be impeccable within and outside the sport. The networks are full of gestures, positions, actions and behavior that allow us to claim that Vinicius is a role model and at the same time an undesirable character.

Football, judicial institutions and the media have focused on the racist attacks against Vinicius Junior. Since 2021, prosecutors have opened 27 cases of racist abuse directed at the Brazilian footballer by eight different fans in Spain, which has received intense and widespread media coverage.

In contrast, much of the racist, sexist or LGBTI-phobic violence suffered by dozens of football professionals remains invisible to institutional action and media attention. Example: In Spain, the first sentence for racist insults against Vinicius (for the racist attacks of 21 May 2023 in Mestalla) was published in June 2024. On the contrary, the decision in the case of racial abuse against Iñaki Williams at RCD Espanyol Field in 2020 was suspended “due to procedural vicissitudes.”

Moreover, this excessive media hype is aimed at making Vinicius Junior and Real Madrid the standard bearers of the fight against racism in Spanish football. Meanwhile, other fans are being held responsible for the violence.

Relevance of a joint strategy

There are countless racist, sexist or homophobic attacks and violence in any Spanish stadium. The Bernabeu, Molinon, Civitas Metropolitano, Camp Nou and Alfonso Perez Coliseum are just a few.

It is violence largely directed at the League’s more than 200 foreign and racialized players, 80 of them black. Fifty are from Latin America and 42 from African countries (29 selected to participate in the 2024 African Cup out of 15 first division teams). Many of them could explain personal experiences and become idols and inspiring role models for a large part of the fanbase. An example is the campaign with sports leaders of the SCORE project.

With the emergence of Nico Williams or Lamin Yamal as stars of a successful team, even the newspaper New York Times It reflected an increasingly diverse and attractive Spanish team to people who had never felt identified with it. They become idols and reference points against hate speech and immigration among football youth.

However, structural racism continues unabated, and at the same time, prosecutors have launched an investigation into racist tweets directed at these players: “Call me weird, but I’d rather lose with a clean Spain team than win with a spoiled Spain team.” Team”; “Moors and browns outside Spain; “Long live the Spanish coyons!”

Thanks to this paradigm shift, supported by the participation of racialized players, Spanish football as a whole may be in a good position to counter hate speech (racism, machismo, LGBTI-phobia…) in the sport. And there is a good opportunity ahead to recognize women’s football as it deserves.

Women’s football has a lot to say

Beyond men’s football, it is important to increase the role of women in Spanish football in the fight against hate speech. Their work to make their rights visible and protected should be celebrated; their struggle to end institutional violence; their attitudes and behavior on and off the playing field to become role models for a very wide audience of girls and boys, youth and adults who have found vital and sporting connections.

In this sense, there are also many female footballers and athletes, sports idols who can become stars and champion countless actions against hatred and violence in sports. Equally an opportunity for institutions and clubs to demonstrate a real commitment to equality and diversity.

Historically, in men’s football, stadium abuse has been seen as part of the spectacle, a form of personal grievance and violent expression of passion. If outreach does not work, it will be necessary to report and punish.

The eradication of racist, sexist or LGBTI-phobic violence in sport will be achieved through joint and determined action by all parties involved: institutions, clubs, players, media and fans. Some are beginning to recognize the problem. Others are forced to act.

In any case, it is important to continue to work to eradicate hate speech and violence in football and to promote change in norms and behavior for all parties involved, whether through awareness-raising, education or sanctions.

Raúl Martínez-Corcuera, Lecturer in Communication Studies. Researcher of hate speech: racism, sexism, LGBT-phobia… in the media, sports, advertising…, ((LINK: EXTERNAL|||https://theconversation.com/institutions/universitat-de-vic-universitat-central-de-catalunya-2379|||Universitat Vic – Central University of Catalonia))

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.