Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

A Red Card to Racism: The Incident at Juventus

By Christos Kassimeris

On April 18, 2009, Juventus hosted Inter Milan in what was a football match that determined, essentially, the league’s winning side. The match ended a draw and, therefore, Inter Milan maintained their healthy lead in Serie A, but the game attracted much attention for reasons not pertinent to football. Born in Italian city Palermo, Mario Balotelli was adopted at the age of three by an Italian family, yet his Italianess was brutally questioned when fans of Juventus sung ‘there is no black Italian’ during the decisive Serie A match. There is little doubt that Balotelli’s opening goal must have devastated the Juventus supporters, yet there is no good enough a reason for the kind of racist abuse that the striker of Ghanaian descent had to endure. The Italian media condemned the incident and so did Giovanni Coboli Gigli, president of Juventus, who criticized that section of fans that derided the talented player. Sadly, the prospect of playing their next home game behind closed doors clearly proved far more critical than the menace that is racial discrimination for Juventus appealed against the ban so as to preserve the club’s interests in the league. Justice was, ultimately, not served when the penalty imposed by the Italian football authorities was never overturned, but when Juventus was made to suffer further humiliation as the club’s decision to appeal invited criticism from the media for failing to acknowledge the gravity of the incident.

Showing no sympathy for the club he once played for, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) president Michel Platini condemned on April 21 the racist incident a few days later and stated that referees would be granted the necessary powers to stop football matches for ten minutes and even to suspend games should racist chanting persist. Along similar lines, Giancarlo Abete, president of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC), emphasized that Italian referees already had the authority to suspend matches when banners inciting racism are displayed inside stadiums. Interestingly, the exact same day that Platini voiced his concerns about the future of the game the United Nations’ Conference Against Racism took place whereby a relevant declaration was issued that made particular reference to the game of football, thus calling Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to implement suitable measures so as to tackle racial discrimination with effect at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa—the country that gave rise to the apartheid regime.

Most certainly, racism in European football has reached unparalleled heights over the past few years and has nowadays become a serious enough matter to compel UEFA to consider conceding to referees sufficient powers for halting, suspending and even abandoning a game when fans engage in racist chanting, as decided on May 12 by Europe’s football governing body. The matter will dominate anew the agenda of UEFA’s forthcoming Executive Committee meeting in Vilnius on July; however, it is worthy to note that such measures will be limited, perhaps, to only those football matches held under the auspices of UEFA at both club and international level.

Christos Kassimeris is assistant professor in political science at European University Cyprus in Nicosia and author of European Football in Black and White: Tackling Racism in Football and and the editor of the forthcoming Anti-Racism in European Football: Fair Play for All.

Swine Flu Media Pandemic Scare: A Lesson from History?

By Debra E. Blakely

In light of the recent Swine Flu pandemic scare, several important trends emerged that demonstrate we haven’t come as far as the technology used to report it. In other words, while instant news stories popped up on major news wire services, Internet sites and social media outlets around the world, the narrative discourse, arbiters and resulting public health policies resorted to old frames created during the deadly 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Even though the death rate for Swine Flu has been extremely low, and influenza is an expected annual pesky visitor, reportage reflected the same intense public anxiety as was reported when millions were actually dying during the 1918 pandemic.

Media coverage in the USA began around April 22, when Swine Flu was detected in several people in San Diego County, California. Public health officials speculated that since this was a strain that had not been seen recently, and that a vaccine was not available, health officials should be on their guard. A couple of days later, a link was made to a recent Swine Flu epidemic in Mexico, where 60 deaths had occurred, from this report news and Internet stories went viral, with thousands of stories being published, tweeted and blogged around the world. In fact, the media coverage spread faster than the actual flu!

However, Swine Flu reportage was preceded with several reasonably calm stories as early as March 28, 2009. The United News of India reported that a Swine Influenza outbreak in Mexico and the USA had been identified and declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. Given a gap of nearly a month between a real alarm and the media frenzy, one must ask, “How could this happen?” A logical exploration might turn out further investigation by asking: Was it the rampant use of technology that helped to fuel the explosion of Swine Flu reportage? Simply put, the answer would be yes and no. Yes, technology has definitely made it much easier for information, be it rumor or fact, to spread at rapid-viral speeds, (hence the phrase, going viral). However, it wasn’t technology, per se, that fueled the media coverage, but in fact it was the media coverage itself.

With initial media stories focusing their narratives on death rates and a virus with no vaccine, the next wave of influenza stories picked up on the analogy to the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918 and the 20 to 50 million deaths it caused worldwide. Stories speculated on infection rates and containment issues, and public health authorities obliged by putting into place quarantine orders and travel advisories. As infections popped up and were reported around the world, schools closed and public health officials scrambled for a vaccine. When Mexico decided to close down to contain their epidemic, the media coverage soared and business continuity plans with essential worker policies began to emerge as a new topic of conversation.

Perhaps, if reporters had made the analogical jump to the two subsequent pandemics, (the Asian Flu Pandemic of 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu Pandemic of 1968), they would have drawn more appropriate analogies, such as when deaths rates are low, and a vaccine is not available, one should focus on practical concerns, such as individual health practices and the natural course of nature. In time, and as time has shown, the virus will run its course.

While influenza remains an annual public health threat, and there is a chance that a deadly virus could possibly wreck havoc and destruction, the World Health Organization declared May 8th, that the world was better prepared to deal with an influenza pandemic. Are we, really?

Debra E. Blakely is assistant professor of communication at the University of Houston–Clear Lake and the author of Mass Mediated Disease: A Case Study Analysis of Three Flu Pandemics and Public Health Policy.