Party pushes racism aside
It’s all love all the time in multicultural Moscow, or at least it is this month
MOSCOW— The Spartak Stadium had all but emptied … still they drummed on.
Senegal’s incredible, untiring travelling band clapped and danced and whistled until the very last of their players disappeared down the tunnel. Seeing their country seal a World Cup-opening triumph had apparently provided enough adrenalin to sustain them. Then again, they might’ve been creating a rumbling racket irrespective of the outcome.
Outside, pained Polish fans, who had witnessed their top-seeded side humbled by a superb Senegal team for the first African victory of this World Cup, waited. As the drummers, dancers and the seven synchronized frontmen with S-E-N-E-G-A-L spelled out across their chests in green and white body paint emerged, there was a rush of red and white Poles. Everyone wanted a piece. Everyone wanted a selfie, an Instagram story, a snap for posterity.
Such is the intoxicating all-love-allthe-time atmosphere of the world’s biggest sporting event.
Senegal’s 2-1 victory rounded out the tournament’s first round of matches and was toasted as completing a clear run — no scoreless draws. It also completed a much more important clear run — no incidents of racism.
This same Spartak Stadium had been ground zero for arguably the most taxing pre-tournament concern as Russia prepared to welcome the world. The rotten xenophobia that has been a hallmark of the host nation’s club game for years had the potential to derail the World Cup before it ever got going.
The watchdog agency Football Against Racism in Europe had warned nonwhite supporters of the “difficult environment” that awaited them. England international Danny Rose revealed he had gone so far as stopping his family from travelling to support him.
Even as the government altered its approach and began to tackle an issue that has festered for decades among far-right nationalist supporters, Russian soccer’s dirty secret stayed out in the open.
As recently as April, Spartak Moscow, the team that gives its name to Tuesday’s venue, was handed a partial stadium ban as punishment for monkey chants supporters had directed at a Black midfielder on an opposing team. The club itself got caught up in a storm earlier in the year when it tweeted a video of its Brazilian players working out at a warm-weather training camp accompanied by the caption “see how the chocolates melt in the sun.”
The same sun was bouncing off the pavements here Tuesday as Senegalese fans partied with the Poles, who vastly outnumbered them ahead of kickoff. There were Russians aplenty and, in keeping with what has been a mass invasion from Latin America, Mexican and Colombian fans were making themselves heard.
Moscow has been a central hub for visitors from all corners, stopping through for a day or two en route to regional host cities and in the process turning the capital into an overflowing melting pot of cultures and comradeship by day and especially night. The locals, so keen to be seen as the perfect hosts, have revelled in getting involved.
“We don’t have any problems because this time is just for fans, for football,” Senegal supporter Alpha Diallo told the Star. The 26-year-old lives in Paris and was never going to let the warnings stop him from being here.
“The people come from all over the world for a carnival,” he said. “What happens after it has finished … it can be difficult because the world is here and then it’s gone.
“But when they’re here it’s no problems at all.”
Diallo’s day only got better as Senegal outsmarted and outplayed the top seeds of Group H. Idrissa Gueye’s opener was controversially added to by M’Baye Niang after the break but Polish gripes rang hollow given the paucity of their performance, with Grzegorz Krychowiak’s late header giving the scoreline a false sheen in their favour.
As the love-in reconvened outside afterwards, you’d almost be forgiven for asking if the World Cup has cured Russian soccer’s racism problem. Almost.
Of course it hasn’t. These mega events have a history of dropping themselves down in places where they’ll claim to have cured all social ills and then take off again without ever checking on the legacy they never shut up about in the buildup.
Poland is a perfect example of that.
Racism had been a scar on its domestic game and also came into focus as it got ready to cohost the 2012 European Championship with Ukraine. The tournament passed without ugly incident and organizers claimed credit for the new dawn.
Six years on, the country has swung wildly to the right, controlled by an ultra-nationalist government with the white supremacist fringe of Polish soccer bolder than ever.
The legacy of Russia’s World Cup will take years to be any way definable — if it is ever evident.
For now, we’ll have to make do with Senegal and its travelling band winning hearts and maybe minds. Let’s hope they hang around.