The 2024 Ballon d'Or award ceremony takes place this Monday, October 28, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The team's successes on the field and individual awards such as the Ballon d'Or (for the best Soccer player on the planet) help validate and build their status as superstars, sports idols, and social role models.
In men's Football, the election or not of the Real Madrid player Vinícius Júnior is a good opportunity to review his conversion into the focus of the anti-racist fight in current Spanish football and claim the need to expand references and strategies. Certain questions are relevant.
In Spanish men's football, the rivalry between F. C. Barcelona and Real Madrid causes a dynamic “we versus them” usually supported by competing nationalist discourses. And sports journalism plays a fundamental role transformed into an ultra fan. This journalism seeks audiences with epic and emotional discourses, without the need for substantiated football arguments. And audiences move in similar dynamics.
Thus, it is foreseeable that if Vinícius Júnior 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 kinds of racist contempt. At the same time, many other messages will value the success of the best player in the world, despising and insulting any criticism of the footballer and focusing speeches against FC Barcelona.
If he does not win the Ballon d'Or, Vinícius will probably be attacked with parodies and memes of contempt, denigration and insults. In turn, his followers will attack the unfair decision argued in a conspiratorial persecution against the footballer, his club, his fans… It is the monochromatic dualism converted into the powerful interpretive framework of media and audiences divided between fans and haters.
Is Vinícius a reference in the fight against racism?
Soccer recreates soccer players as role models, turned into sports idols. They become ideal representatives of public morality. These heroes embody how we should be and want to be like them. Thus, they must reflect ideal values and behaviors, they must be impeccable inside and outside of sport. The networks are full of gestures, attitudes, actions and behaviors that would allow us to argue that Vinícius is a role model and, at the same time, that he is an undesirable character.
Football and judicial institutions and the media have focused on the racist attacks against Vinícius Júnior. Since 2021, the Prosecutor's Office has opened 27 cases for racist insults uttered against the Brazilian footballer by eight different fans in Spain, with intense and extensive media coverage.
In contrast, the large amount of racist, sexist or LGTBIphobic violence suffered by dozens of football professionals remains invisible to institutional action and to the media focus. An example: in Spain, the first conviction for racist insults against Vinícius (for the racist attacks on May 21, 2023 in Mestalla) was published in June 2024. In contrast, the ruling in the case of racist insults against Iñaki Williams in the field of R. C. D. Espanyol in 2020 has been suspended “due to procedural vicissitudes.”
Furthermore, this media overexposure aims to turn Vinícius Júnior and Real Madrid into standard bearers against racism in Spanish football. And meanwhile, the rest of the fans are presented as responsible for the violence.
Read more: Vinicius case: an opportunity to eradicate hatred from football
The urgency of a joint strategy
There are countless racist, sexist or homophobic attacks and violence in any of the Spanish stadiums. The Bernabéu, the Molinón, the Civitas Metropolitano, the Camp Nou and the Coliseum Alfonso Pérez are some of them.
They are violence mainly directed at the more than 200 foreign and racialized players in the League, 80 of them black. Fifty come from Latin America and 42 from African countries (29 selected for the 2024 Africa Cup from 15 first division teams). Many of them could explain personal experiences and be idols and inspiring role models for a large part of the fans. The campaign with sports leaders from the SCORE project is an example.
With the appearance of Nico Williams or Lamine Yamal as stars of a successful national team, even the newspaper The New York Times It echoed an increasingly diverse and attractive Spanish team for people who never felt identified with it. They are becoming idols and references against hate speech and against immigration among soccer youth.
However, structural racism does not subside, and at the same time the Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation into the racist tweets against these players: “Call me strange, but I would rather lose with a pure Spanish National Team than win with a tainted Spanish National Team”; “Moors and browns outside Spain; “Long live the Spanish cojones!”
With this paradigm shift, supported by the participation of racialized players, perhaps Spanish football as a whole is facing a good opportunity to stand up to hate speech (racism, machismo, LGTBI-phobia…) in sport. And before a good opportunity to recognize, as it deserves, women's football.
Read more: Goddesses but mortals: the conquest of Spanish footballers off the pitch
Women's football has a lot to say
And beyond men's football, in the fight against hate speech it is relevant to raise the role of women in Spanish football. Their work to make their rights visible and vindicate them must be highlighted; their struggles to end institutional violence; their attitudes and behaviors, on and off the field of play, to become role models for a very wide audience of girls and boys, young people and adults who have found vital and sporting references.
In this sense, there are also many female soccer players and athletes, sports idols, who can star and champion countless actions against hatred and violence in sports. An opportunity, equally, for institutions and clubs to show a real commitment to equality and diversity.
Historically, men's football has normalized insults in stadiums as part of the spectacle, as a formula to vent personal frustrations, expressing their passion vehemently. When awareness-raising actions do not work, it would be necessary to report and punish.
The eradication of racist, sexist or LGTBI-phobic violence in sport will be achieved through the joint and decisive action of all the parties involved: institutions, clubs, footballers, media and fans. Some are becoming aware of the problem. Others are being forced to act.
In any case, it is important to continue working to eliminate hate speech and violence in football, to promote a change in norms and behavior of all parties involved, whether through awareness-raising, education or sanctions.
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