Enzo Fernandez: Alleged racist Argentinians chant ‘tainted glory’ of Copa America win – BBC Sport

Argentina won the Copa America, but lost the respect of many because of the way they celebrated the goal.

Midfielder Enzo Fernandez is facing disciplinary proceedings at Chelsea after posting a video on social media which the French Football Federation said contained alleged “racist and discriminatory language”.

FIFA is also investigating the video, in which several members of the Argentina team – celebrating their 1-0 win over Colombia in the final – take part in a song originally sung by Argentinian fans questioning the heritage of France’s black and mixed-race players.

The song’s global repercussions sparked a reaction from the Argentine government.

The right-wing administration of Javier Milei has no natural sympathy for anything that might be considered “woke.”

But Julio Garro, the undersecretary for sports, suggested that team captain Lionel Messi and local federation president Claudio Tapia apologize for the song some sang on the bus Sunday night. “It gave us a bad impression,” he said.

Garro was fired Wednesday for his comments, while others dismissed the need for an apology.

With monotonous and depressing regularity, when Argentine teams face opponents from Brazil in continental club competitions, scenes of Argentine fans making monkey gestures are seen in the stands.

When questioned, the perpetrators of this violence categorically deny being racist. They engage in “jokes.” Everything is permitted, they say, in love, in war and in football. Anything that provokes and irritates the opposition is permitted. And in this last case, such sentiments are widespread.

Attempts by Argentine clubs to crack down on this behaviour have often been half-hearted, referring to it as “xenophobia” – rather than calling it by its name: racism.

It is particularly depressing to see that some players have behaved in this way. In this case, there is no excuse.

With the exception of one backup goalkeeper, the entire team is based in Europe.

These players are part of multinational, multicultural, multiracial teams. They should know better. In addition to the possible sanctions, there could be some very awkward moments in the locker room when they return for pre-season training.

One of the attractions of national team service for these players is the chance to be with people from their own culture and sing their own songs.

It’s an opportunity for them to be Argentine in an aggressive and assertive way.

Many aspects of the country’s fan culture are wonderful. The songs can be hypnotic.

But the lyrics of this particular song, which was born out of the World Cup final in Qatar, which Argentina won on penalties against France, are extremely disturbing.

Argentina’s players risk not only insulting their black teammates and fans, but also their own heritage.

It is rare these days to see a black Argentinian. But that was not always the case.

At the time of Spanish colonization, the country imported far fewer African slaves than its neighbor Brazil, and had ended slavery decades earlier. But about two hundred years ago, Buenos Aires was a third black.

There are many theories, ranging from yellow fever epidemics to deaths during the Revolutionary War.

The most coherent idea, however, is simply that they were overwhelmed by the millions of immigrants pouring in from Europe and the Middle East (especially Italy – Argentines speak Spanish with an Italian intonation) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

African influence is present in the genetic heritage. Dark-skinned people are often nicknamed “el negro” (the negro), which has no negative connotation.

African influence has left its mark. Argentina’s most significant cultural product is tango. The word is African, and the music and dance, like so many genres in the Americas, are the result of the mixture of African, European and indigenous styles.

Because of its humble social origins, tango was looked down upon by the Argentine elite as a vulgar phenomenon – until it took Paris by storm in the early 20th century and was thus legitimized.

Interestingly, like samba in Brazil, tango in Argentina evolved in the opposite direction to football. The genre started at the bottom of the social ladder and worked its way up, while football started with the elite and worked its way down.

A friend of mine is a black Uruguayan sociologist.

You would expect him to have a good radar for such things, and he lived for years in Buenos Aires without encountering any problems.

On the other hand, the mere presence of so many European immigrants in the southern cone of South America was an explicitly racist project.

At the time, there was a fashion for eugenic ideas – the belief that certain “races” were superior to others.

South American leaders sought to “improve” and “civilize” their countries by importing white labor.

The very presence of so many European descendants in Argentina is therefore the consequence of racist thinking.

The idea of ​​a racial hierarchy has never completely disappeared and it appeared in all its horror in the lyrics of the song with which some Argentine players tarnished their glory on Sunday.