UPDATED

“There is no place for racism. It is impossible to love this sport, to play it, or to support a team and be racist or xenophobic at the same time. The values conveyed by football are the exact opposite of racism. Because racism promotes exclusion and hate. Football, in contrast, brings people together to share a common pleasure. Every four years we experience a unique time in which people congregate together, take part together and celebrate together. Racists are not invited.”

-Zinedine Zidane

Whilst we here at FDB do not wish to condone violence in any form, we feel it pertinent to pass a quick comment on THAT Zinedine Zidane incident from the France V Italy World Cup final.

One of the world’s greatest players with eighteen years experience in top-flight football is hardly likely to lose his mind in during the biggest game of the world’s biggest sporting event without some very intense provocation. The French media are reporting that the abuse issued to Zizou from Marco Materazzi was “deeply, deeply offensive in nature” and was centred around Zidane’s Arabic heritage. In other words, he was racially abused. SBS’s head of sport, Les Murray just went on air and confirmed that that other sources in the French camp have confirmed this.

We don’t doubt that Zidane’s headbutt deserved a red card, but we are sincerely hoping that further action is taken against Materazzi in line with FIFA’s strong anti-racism stance.

Zidane himself is a committed anti-racist and we implore him (as we know he reads FDB on a daily basis), to pursue this matter with the same on-field tenacity he showed throughout the tournament.

Updates.

various press agencies throughout the world are reporting variants on the “dirty terrorist”/”son of a dirty terrorist whore” slur. Materazzi is of course denying this.

The French anti-racism group, SOS, are calling on FIFA to launch a full enquiry into this matter.

Zizou himself will make a statement in the coming days.