Don't take your kids to the stadium
A football stadium should be a place to celebrate, to cheer for your team, to spend time with your kids and family, to see your idols up close, to feel a rollercoaster of emotions, to sing along to amusing chants and most importantly to enjoy the beautiful sport football is.
An awaited European night at Anfield, Signal Iduna Park or the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán are the idyllic examples that come to mind, with the whole crowd chanting in unison and supporting their team no matter what.
Yet unfortunately those seem to be rare examples nowadays, at least in LaLiga where the focus is on the fans more than ever, but for the wrong reasons.
A stadium is no longer an adequate place for a kid. It hasn’t been for a long time. Maybe it’s never been. The amount of disrespect thrown about during a game towards players, coaches, referees or even opposing fans, is constant. Whether it’s a racist comment or chant, swearing, targeted abuse, violence inside or outside the stadium, spitting, throwing objects, a pitch invasion or even offensive gestures. There’s just too much bad stuff going on.
Now everyone is rightly pointing out the racism Vinícius Jr. is suffering, but football has been rotten for quite some time. Iñaki Williams, Dani Alves, Marcelo, Samuel Eto’o… are just a small fraction of the “better” players that have had to deal with racism here in Spain. With the impunity fans have at this level, just imagine how freely they can say whatever they want in lower divisions and regional leagues where there’s even less control.
The same happens regarding homophobia, experienced by Pep Guardiola, Cristiano Ronaldo or Gerard Piqué, among others. A quick Google search shows multiple examples in Spain and all over the globe in Australia, Brazil, England, France, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay… which comes to prove the atmosphere at football stadiums is indeed rotten.
The lack of anticipation and authority to tackle these matters has normalised too many of these situations which aren’t questioned until they’re taken to the limit.
Xavi Hernández, often criticised for misreading the room or poorly expressing himself, was actually spot on when asked about the matter regarding Vinícius:
“It’s the only sport in which insulting is widely accepted. While I’m working they can call me ‘son of a ****’. I don’t see a baker or a construction worker having to go through this. I think it’s time to put an end to it. If there’s an insult we stop the game. The presidents of LaLiga and the Spanish FA need to end this. Why do I have to put up with insults?”
Like Xavi, back in 2019 Marcelino García Toral had to withstand some awful abuse at Vallecas. People tend to admire Rayo fans but there are always despicable beings at the stadiums, such as those standing barely a few meters away from Marcelino and wishing he and is wife had died back in 2017 when he had a car accident. The former Valencia manager had to turn a deaf ear because had he confronted them he probably would've been sanctioned himself and received even more verbal abuse from the crowd. Worst thing is, right next to the bullies you can see a child watching and listening to all the horrendous things being said.
Is that the example we want to set for our kids? Taking them to the stadium to watch grown ups behaving like animals? They’ll probably be better off attending a tennis game, watching a film at the cinema, playing FIFA or just following the football from home.
These attitudes can’t be eradicated exclusively by the authorities watching over football, given the embedded cultural and social background each person has. But these authorities can enforce stricter measures to guarantee there’s a much healthier environment at football stadiums so we can all enjoy the show.