Adnan Ouedraogo
Sports management insights for everyone...
Possible Boycott of 2018 World Cup in Russia
After Yaya Toure felt insulted during his Champions League match with Manchester City against CSKA Moscow, he suggests that black players should boycott the Russia 2018 World Cup.
While the Russian club denies that any racist chanting took place in their stadium, the UEFA is currently investigating the case.
"Having carefully studied the video of the game, we found no racist insults from fans of CSKA", the club states. Seydou Doumbia, another Ivorian player, playing for CSKA also denies that there could have been any racist chants against Toure or other black players on the pitch.
"My Ivory Coast colleague is clearly exaggerating" (Seydou Doumbia, CSKA Moscow striker)
However, Piara Powar, an official of FIFA and member of different discrimination task forces, supports Toure's opinion. In his opinion it is absolutely righteous that Toure tries to raise the awareness towards the topic by calling for a boycott of African players and players of African heritage, which would ultimately lead to a cancellation of the event. The "Football against Racism in Europe" task force, which Piara Powar is part of, identified banners which support a Greek right party, showing a symbol similar to a swastika in a lot of eastern European and Russian stadiums.
"In terms of the number of black players being abused, that is happening in club football in Russia and in that regard the situation is dire" (Piara Powar, "Football against Racism in Europe")
My Opinion
Although I do not believe that all the players of African heritage will boycott the world cup in Russia, Yaya Toure made a good attempt of raising awareness towards the topic of racism in football. Actually, it is no secret that there has been an on-going issue about racism in Eastern Europe. The way that CSKA officials deal with the issue is far too careless considering the image that is shown of Russia prior to the world cup. Remarkable is also, that the national governing body for Football in Russia, makes no attempts of resolving the situation or at least showing more transparency by making numbers accessible.