Off late, we have seen some nasty acts of racisms not only in the stadiums but also on the play areas where targeted players somehow managed to answer deliberated fans’ moves with patience and intelligence – remember banana eating incident from Dani Alves who was widely appreciated from every corner? It now seems to be getting into fashion as we saw another instance where a player – Papakouli Diop from Levante – did something like this again when he did a brief dance after being gestured like a monkey from the stands. Actually, having these kinds of unwelcome signs is not new in soccer as we see them every other day, but what is new is the reaction from the player which was unusual in this case. This could be the byproduct of Dani Alves’ banana eating incident and its aftermath; coz Barca defender got the support over his move from throughout the world. If this is the changing trend in racism, especially in soccer, it should be welcomed by everyone as it spreads a massage that no matter how you criticize a player, he would always take it casually giving you no space in the media.
If we look at the whole incident that happened in Sunday’s match, Diop claims, he had been receiving these kinds of gestures throughout the game hence he had to react in this way after the final whistle. Final result of the game also went in his team’s favor; hence Atletico fans had to do these nasty acts. Actually, 28-year-old Diop, a Senegal center back, has always been subjected to several forms of discriminations throughout his career and now when he is about to retire from active soccer, he was expected to answer his critics in this way. He explained the incident and said, “They called me monkey and I turned and imitated a monkey. I’m tired of racism in football. And there’s a lot. I did the monkey dance to highlight the matter. I wanted people to know what happened. I do not know if it’s racist or disrespectful, but they have to stop the monkey noises made by some people.”
Latest dancing incident is also getting favorable support across social media where most of the fans are sharing their banana eating and monkey dancing images to show their support to Diop. This could be a new era in Spanish football where they would use innovative ideas to eradicate racism from Spanish soil. Anyways, let’s see how more support roars in for Senegalese.