Balotelli: If I'm racially abused again, I'll walk off the pitch

"I always said that if [racism] happened in the stadium I will just do like 'nobody says nothing and I don't care'," Balotelli told CNN.

"But this time I think I've changed my mind a little bit. If it's going to happen one more time, then I'm going to leave the pitch because it's so stupid.

"I spoke with Prince. I was about to leave the pitch on Sunday, but they thought I wanted to leave because we had some difficulty with the game.

"I said 'no, it's better we play and I will talk', that's it. But if it wasn't for this reason then I was going to leave the pitch on Sunday."

I support his decision. Some may think that it is kind of strong, however, we have all seen that light fines to the clubs and fans are not really making any difference. So maybe if fans knew that their ticket money would go to waste, they'd think twice before saying anything racist!

I support it, but he's making it easy for opposing teams by saying this. He's a threatening players and disgusting people will now be even more encouraged to racially abuse him. Before it was about getting under his skin and altering his play, now a group of fans may have the power to remove him from the field. Sad stuff

#Free Mario

The rules need to be changed for racism. Instead of punishing the club, punish the individuals. Say to them if they're racist, they'll get 5 years in jail and all their possessions taken off them. That way they won't most likely be racist.

In order to spot the individuals, have better cameras that focus on the crowd and other similar equipment maybe.

Yohan Modric wrote:The rules need to be changed for racism. Instead of punishing the club, punish the individuals. Say to them if they're racist, they'll get 5 years in jail and all their possessions taken off them. That way they won't most likely be racist.

In order to spot the individuals, have better cameras that focus on the crowd and other similar equipment maybe.

5 years in jail and having your stuff repossessed for engaging in racist activities at a football match? Jesus, I know who I wouldn't be voting for in a Presidential election.

I can understand why he would feel that way. Its an awful awful thing. But he can't give in like that or else they win.

He should score a hat trick first then walk off

The best way to keep racism outside of stadiums and outside of the sport in general , is to educate people . One very good way to do this , and clubs have been doing this for a good while now , even though some not necessarily about the same reason , it works either way , is buying players from all over the world , in whatever league they are. Even the most stupid of racist fans , one day , might think why should he be hating his own team's player , just because it happened by pure chance to be born here or there.To realise that he's not anything worse from his teammate next to him , who was born in the same country as him who racialy abuses people.

There are other ways too .

They could even show clips on the screens about racism before games , or give free books talking about what racism actualy is , when someone purchases club merchandise , either from the stadium or the internet . There are ways , lots of them.

But sadly , that's just the one part of the racist 'coin'. In more advanced countries , for example like in Italy , racism in football might occur sometimes genuinely but sometimes ,for different reasons. Let me explain. In the same Milan - Roma match where Balotelli and Boateng where abused , Rossoneri fans pointed at Lobont with a green laser , each time Balotelli took a free kick. They did that , to disturb Lobont and with some luck , to trouble him and as a result to lose concentration and concede the free kick. Now that's stupid and unfair , right ?

It's the same reason why many fans around the world , USE racism as their tool to disturb the opponent , not necessarily because they are indeed racists , but because they know certain players will be irritated and insulted by it. Of course there are genuine racists incidents , i am not even arguing that. It's just , people who attend to stadiums frequently can certainly understand what i am saying here. In the most known leagues , it doesn't happen every other day , but it does , more often than it should have. The 'fans' that racialy abused Baloteli and Prince in San Siro , did for that reason , to irritate them , make them lose focus on the game , so their team could gain something from it. These are usualy the ultras who do stuff like that and i am sure it has happened all over and not just in Italy in particular.

Now , such kind of low cunning that crop of 'fans' have , cannot be stopped with players walking off the pitch. They will immediately use it to their advantage , especialy when they think it might prevent something bad for their team. For example , in any game , a certain team is losing 2-3 zero at some point and them can't take it anymore ; they begin to massively use racial abuse to frustrate a player/players and make him/them walk off the pitch , game is over , ruined. What will happen to them and what to the team which walked off?

Them nothing ; their team will pay a fine but the other team , will get heavily punished because their players walked off during the middle of the game , even under these circumstances. It will lead to further problems. Now , the only thing it can be done about this , is by giving power to the refs and by introducing draconian measures about it.

1. If the ref understands that racial abuse is happening , he stops the game for good , no 2nd chances. The next game will be behind closed doors but only for the club's fans who used racial abuse , wherever that might be , be that in Europe or whatever.

2. By UEFA law and the responsible federation behind each league , force the club whose fans racialy abused players from other teams , to pay fine to the team which suffered it. The bigger the fine , the better .

3. The more it occurs , the more the matches behind closed doors will be and the fines will be multiplied.

4. If racial abusive incidents supercede a certain amount of times regardless of the time they shared between them , against any opponent in any competition , the certain club will be punished with exclusion from all UEFA competitions for 2 years.

I think there are ways , even harsh ones .Although certainly , education is the best way to fight this kind of mental plague that is racism. But they don't do anything , the ones in charge. I've said it before , they say they care about it , but their actions are weak. Sure they say some words like Blatter does , print some motos around the pitch "fight against racism" and so what. Few might change .

Football in the past had to deal with the hooligans and the people in charge around the sport won them with draconian measures. After hooliganism was defeated to a great degree , though not eliminated everywhere unfortunately , racism gained space near the sport. I don't see why similar measures won't suffice again , but what are they waiting for , i really cannot tell.

I've said it countless times here and to people I know that punishing the club is stupid, all punishments must be directly towards the fans.

Also MT

A bot gone mad with power

But seriously, even if the people are wrong in the first place, giving out such punishments would lead to riots and all out chaos.

There would be a small war going on in the country.

Pls don't go into politics mt, you'll get us all killed. Perhaps that's your plan, like the computers from Terminator

I'm watching you.

Why make yourself a weak and easy target? dont listen play your game and go back to you millions.

Problem is he cant "play his game" when a bunch of idiots are showering racist remarks at him, he himself said he was thinking of abandoning the game along with KPB, but they stayed because they didn't want result to go down as a forfeit and lose on CL next year. They did what is best for the club and i have massive respect for that. We really need to sort out this shit

Also, you're a pissed off racist fan. Balo scores a penalty to make it 2-0 Milan in the 80th minute.


I wonder what could possibly happen.

He really is making himself a target.

AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:I've said it countless times here and to people I know that punishing the club is stupid, all punishments must be directly towards the fans.

Also MT

A bot gone mad with power

But seriously, even if the people are wrong in the first place, giving out such punishments would lead to riots and all out chaos.

There would be a small war going on in the country.

Pls don't go into politics mt, you'll get us all killed. Perhaps that's your plan, like the computers from Terminator

I'm watching you.

And how exactly do you think this can be achieved ? You cannot pin point all those fans one by one , i hope you realise this. When a bunch of idiots shout during a game , there are a bunch of idiots and unless you can identify them idiots all by person , nothing can be done about punishing 'those fans' .

Obviously , the clubs shouldn't be responsible about a bunch of idiots , everybody gets that. But the irory stands correctly , punishing the clubs for the idiots is the only way it may prevent them in the future. Apparently , fans should be helping their clubs and not hurting them in any way and by that logic clubs are being punished for such actions by football federations or UEFA/FIFA e.t.c

In any case , people who usualy racialy abuse in stadiums , aren't the vips or season ticket holders . And there's no way to identify everybody in the stadium , even if lots of measures are taken. But even if they did , it's practicaly impossible to prove who said what inside a stadium , packed with fans all over the place. That's why clubs get punished instead , so those fans realise they are doing more harm than anything .

Well what you're saying is because they can't identify the actual culprits they take it out on the clubs. Which is wrong and solves nothing.

At the end of the day. An angry, racist fan won't lose any sleep over his club getting a miniscule fine. It's not the clubs fault that it's difficult to prove who was racist during a game. That's for the authorities.

AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:Well what you're saying is because they can't identify the actual culprits they take it out on the clubs. Which is wrong and solves nothing.

At the end of the day. An angry, racist fan won't lose any sleep over his club getting a miniscule fine. It's not the clubs fault that it's difficult to prove who was racist during a game. That's for the authorities.

It is not right , i give you that but wrong? Wrong would be to do nothing. And yes it will solve things , to a degree. At least it would do , if the fines and measures against the incidents where heavy.

Again , the clubs aren't at fault at anything , most of the times at least.. I am not even arguing about that. But they have to take the punishment , because it cannot be possibly done any other way.

How's that for example : Would the Roma fans racialy abuse the Milan players , if they knew for a certainty that their last game would be behind close doors and that the heavy fine which their own team is going to pay , will go to their opponents , to Milan?

Such drastic measures against the clubs , would make them consider their actions. Especialy after already being punished once or twice. They are called draconian measures for a reason , they tend to bring order one way or the other. The case here isn't exactly the means , but clearly the cause . So , it might be unfair and i agree on that , but it cannot be done differently .

You could gamble on the assumption that a massive club fine would deter fans from mis-behaving. However, all it takes is one fan to completely ruin a clubs season in that case. And you'd have a squad of players, a manager, the background staff and the board all paying heavily for what some idiotic fan done.

That's why increasing the punishment on a completely innocent party can't happen.

There is definitely no concrete way of stopping it, but going after the wrong people isn't justifiable.

AbraKebabra Alacalamb wrote:You could gamble on the assumption that a massive club fine would deter fans from mis-behaving. However, all it takes is one fan to completely ruin a clubs season in that case. And you'd have a squad of players, a manager, the background staff and the board all paying heavily for what some idiotic fan done.

That's why increasing the punishment on a completely innocent party can't happen.

There is definitely no concrete way of stopping it, but going after the wrong people isn't justifiable.

I am leaving this discussion for tomorrow. But the fine wouldn't be millions , say. Though the possibility for that crazy fan exists , i wonder whom would have the balls for that anyway , one man alone between a bunch of ultras rivals.Have you ever been between such fans ? You don't wear the wrong colour near them , forget about doing something like that knowing the circumstances He seriously wouldn't walk alive from there , in whichever stadium he might find himself into

In general , i believe if there was a way to punish them directly , they could be doing something already.

Thats shows how weak he is emotionally. He could just say: "hey, *bleep* off, im here, ill play, and ill score."

There would have to be people employed by the clubs placed on strategic places all over the stadium with video cameras, trying to record as soon as racist chants begin. Most likely the groups making monkey sounds will stay close together, as being a racist all alone would'nt be that fun now would it.

If the cameraman gets proof against a few people and bann them for life, it could be the shocker needed for other "racists" to see it as a risk not worth taking. Giving out fines that are not even that heavy is getting embarrassing at the moment. Clubs wont do anything.

Yeah there should be more done to catch the actual guilty party instead of trying to frighten people by punishing the club they support.

Think about it, if you owned a food stand and some of your regular customers were trashing other nearby shops, you wouldn't be happy if the authorities that be came up to you and said "Well, you're doing nothing wrong but your customers are destroying property. We've decided to fine you every time they mis-behave in hope it'll scare them off." It's just wrong. It solves nothing.

Catch the racists. How? That's up for somebody else to plan out and decide. But going after innocent board members is *bleep* stupid.

Racism can be tackled only with punishment. Racists are racists inspite of education. No amount of extra education is going to eradicate this.

With modern technology, i don't think it would be very difficult for clubs to monitor racist chants and take appropriate actions against these fans.

Yohan Modric wrote:The rules need to be changed for racism. Instead of punishing the club, punish the individuals. Say to them if they're racist, they'll get 5 years in jail and all their possessions taken off them. That way they won't most likely be racist.

In order to spot the individuals, have better cameras that focus on the crowd and other similar equipment maybe.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

You know this will only help racism right? It creates resentment and that's what racism basically is at it's core.

Yeah if a man came into my house and tried to repo my entire lifes worth I would attack him, so would most people


I think a better way of dealing with this (There is no perfect solution) is to have clubs implement a system where they can catch mis-behaving fans more often than not. If the club consistently fails do do anything THEN you can punish them, but you need to give them help catching them.

Banning the fans from the stadium would be my proposed punishment, maybe even a suspension from being on TV although I'm not sure if TV companies would allow that.

Of course since this is Seria A banning fans from stadiums might be redundant :trolololol:

You know, i have some mixed feelings about this now. If there's a significant portion of the crowd being racist, then the player should walk off the pitch. But if it's a small group being idiots... why punish the rest? Let the league and club figure out penalties and fines.

I tend to wonder if this is becoming more the fashionable thing to do rather than really taking a stand about racism.