Politics
‘Intolerable whiff of racism’: Spanish soccer’s never-ending problem
MADRID — A soccer-racism row involving a former prime minister has triggered renewed scrutiny of a perennial Spanish problem.
Mariano Rajoy, who governed Spain between 2011 and 2018 as leader of the conservative People’s Party, described the French team in a column he wrote for El Debate news site as a “very high-level squad. Of course, without Frenchmen,” in reference to the African heritage of some of the players.
The remarks sparked a fierce backlash from across the border ahead of tonight’s World Cup semifinal between Spain and France in Dallas.
On Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said, “France has no skin color. Any contrary claim stems from stupidity, racism or a combination of the two.”
Several other French politicians also criticized Rajoy, while the French soccer federation president, Philippe Diallo, wrote on social media that the remarks “carry an intolerable whiff of racism.”
Even the spokesperson for the far-right National Rally party, Julien Odoul, said: “Mr. Rajoy is a racist. Simply, his statements are scandalous, shameful, and regrettable. Everyone should condemn them.”
Spain’s socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also took France’s side against his predecessor.
“There are those who still measure belonging by surname, place of birth, or skin color,” he wrote on social media. “Spain belongs to those who love it and work for it. Not to those who shame it with xenophobic comments. France, we will see you in the semi-final. May the best team win and may racism lose.”
Rajoy’s comments have reignited a debate that has dogged Spanish soccer for decades, even as it has morphed into a World Cup superpower. While high-profile cases involving stars like Samuel Eto’o and Vinícius Júnior have prompted tougher punishments and greater public condemnation, racist abuse from the stands — and broader questions about race, identity and belonging in Spain — have proved harder to eradicate. The latest controversy underscores how soccer reflects Spanish tensions that extend beyond the pitch.
In 2004, Spain fans made monkey noises at Black English players during a game in Real Madrid’s Bernabéu Stadium. Weeks earlier, Spain’s then-coach Luis Aragonés had been caught on microphone calling French star Thierry Henry a “black shit.”
In 2006, Barcelona’s Cameroonian forward Samuel Eto’o refused to continue playing a league game in Real Zaragoza’s La Romareda Stadium after home fans repeatedly directed monkey chants at him. Eto’o’s stand was seen as a reckoning for racism in Spanish soccer, although many believed the €9,000 fine handed to Real Zaragoza was laughable.
In the years since, there have been a number of similar incidents. Most notoriously, in 2023, Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward Vinícius Júnior stopped playing and confronted Valencia fans who had been shouting racist abuse at him in their Mestalla Stadium. The controversy drew a show of outrage and solidarity for the player from the Brazilian government.
Racist abuse by fans had become increasingly common in the 1990s as Spanish soccer drew more players from abroad, including Africa and South America. At approximately the same time, Spain was also starting to see a large influx of immigrants, many of them from those same continents.
In a 2024 research paper on racism in Spanish soccer, the Funcas think tank, an independent institution focused on economic and social analysis, found that many radical fans were unhappy about the arrival of nonwhite players in La Liga.
“What is happening in football reflects what is happening, sooner or later, in broader society,” one fan was quoted as saying in the document.
“If there isn’t a solution, we’ll be invaded by a legion of foreigners and Spain will lose its identity,” the fan added.
Although Spanish authorities have clamped down on radical fan groups since the turn of the century, many of those sentiments have not gone away.
However, the Júnior episode shows that Spain’s soccer institutions take racist abuse more seriously than they did 20 years ago. Three Valencia fans were given eight-month jail sentences for their role in the Mestalla incident. Four fans of Real Madrid’s cross-town rival Atlético de Madrid were also given jail terms for hanging an effigy of Júnior from a bridge before a game.
The Rajoy racism case has surprised many because he is viewed as a moderate and yet his comments chime with the sentiments of the far right.
Political commentator Marc Bassets from the left-leaning El País warned in an op-ed that the kind of opinions voiced by Rajoy are too often tolerated or trivialized. He said the broader political context is significant, including the far-right Vox party’s introduction of a Spaniards-first “national priority” policy in regions where it governs alongside Rajoy’s PP.
“In times of ‘national priority’, the white noise of casual racism that can be seen in society risks becoming even more casual,” Bassets said.
At a press conference Monday, Spanish football star Lamine Yamal hit back at Rajoy.
“If football has a purpose, it is to unite society, and there is no better example [of that] than us and France,” Yamal said, describing both national teams as models of integration.
DALLAS, Texas — The World Cup was supposed to be Dallas’s moment to shine. The city is famously image-conscious, and the powers-that-be trumpeted the fact that more Cup matches were scheduled here than any other host city. It seemed like a coup for a town whose football team (the other kind of football) bills itself as “America’s team.”
But off the pitch, Dallas leaders have spent the spring and summer fighting a series of political fights, many of them centered around sports. It’s a cautionary tale to the many European tourists who have marveled at America’s glittering sporting venues, but are unaware of the complex economic and political forces that have shaped them, for better and for worse.
Before the soccer tournament even started, the city’s pro basketball team had announced it was leaving its downtown arena. Then the hockey team decamped for a new arena in the suburbs.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson was booed when he attended a World Cup Fan Fest. Along the way, the city was forced to furlough non-essential workers because of a budget shortfall, so the public libraries were closed for a day last week.
“There’s a lot of — the only word I can think of is — drama,” City Councilmember Paula Blackmon said.
To be clear, the World Cup matches aren’t being played in Dallas. They’re 15 miles west, in Arlington, Texas. The Texas Rangers play baseball a few blocks away.
But Dallas proper could still stake a claim as a professional sports hub. The Dallas Mavericks (basketball) and the Dallas Stars (hockey) have spent the last 25 years at American Airlines Center, a retro-styled arena just north of the central business district, which is served by its dedicated light rail stop. That arena’s future has been at the heart of the fighting.
Last fall, the city began discussing the idea of tearing down its City Hall to make way for a new sports arena. The building is showing its age — or its neglect — and city officials estimate it’ll take hundreds of millions of dollars to repair it.
Some in Dallas questioned whether the teams need a new arena, since the American Airlines Center — which is 1.6 miles from City Hall — seems to work just fine. Others objected to tearing down the building since its architect, I.M. Pei, is kind of a big deal.
The conflict divided the city council into two factions — the majority in favor of tearing down the building, the minority trying to preserve it. Blackmon and another council member, both of whom favor preserving the old City Hall, sued the city in June trying to block a vote on tearing down the building.
To some extent, the fight has been a proxy for the broader fight over how to preserve downtown Dallas. AT&T, the telecom giant which has had its corporate headquarters in Dallas since 2008, announced this spring it’s moving to the suburbs, citing rising crime, homelessness and government dysfunction. Even the luxury retailer Neiman Marcus, the most Dallas of institutions, is closing its downtown store.
Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, who got into politics after a career as an investigative reporter, said the fracas over the sports arena is a symptom of the city’s dysfunctional government. Dallas has a weak mayor and its city council has been divided for decades, which gives developers — and sports teams — the upper hand in negotiating with the city.
Miller is famous locally for turning down the Dallas Cowboys when team owner Jerry Jones asked for a publicly-financed stadium inside the city in the early 2000s.
The Cowboys — like the Mavericks and Stars before them — promised to help redevelop neglected parts of the city. Miller argued that the city was better off putting its funds into basic services like public safety and infrastructure — and pointed to a string of broken promises from the sports teams and other big developers.
“It’s kind of Dallas’ Achilles heel, because Dallas will just do anything to quote unquote ‘save the teams,’ even though all the teams are all within a 30-minute drive of all of our homes,” she said.
Dallas’s local organizing committee for the World Cup declined to comment for this story, as did a spokesperson for the Mavericks. A spokesperson for the Stars didn’t respond to requests for comment. Johnson, the Dallas mayor, also declined several interview requests.
Most of the fighting has been invisible to World Cup fans, who will flock to town Tuesday for the region’s final World Cup match, which is the semi-final between France and Spain. But the outcome of the city council fight could affect Dallas for decades to come.
Democrats vying to replace former Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner on the ballot are set to battle on the debate stage Thursday night.
News Center Maine confirmed the debate, which will be held at 7 p.m. EDT in Portland and include three former gubernatorial hopefuls — Troy Jackson, Shenna Bellows and Nirav Shah — as well as former 2nd District candidate Jordan Wood. The local news organization told Blue Light News it invited candidates who received at least 20 percent of the vote in their respective primaries in June.
All four candidates confirmed their participation in statements to Blue Light News.
Platner’s decision to drop out of the race last week — following POLITICO’s report of a new sexual assault allegation — set off a scramble among Maine Democrats to find a nominee to take on GOP Sen. Susan Collins.
Thursday marks the first public face-off for these candidates, who’ve been jockeying to win over Platner’s base of support ahead of the July 25 nominating convention, when more than 600 delegates will choose Platner’s replacement. The race is a must-win for Democrats if they hope to take over control of the Senate in November.
One notable candidate didn’t get an invitation: Dan Kleban, who ran for Senate but dropped out to back Gov. Janet Mills over Platner in the primary.
A spokesperson for News Center Maine said they did not invite him because Kleban did not meet the vote threshold. Kleban did not respond to a request for comment.
Jackson, in a statement Tuesday, urged the center to include other candidates who’ve declared they’re seeking the nomination or are listed on the Maine Democratic Party’s current voter guide, “to restore voters’ trust in this process being open, transparent, and fair.”
The debate will run for 90 minutes and be televised statewide on stations WCSH 6 and WLBZ 2.
Andrew Howard and Jessica Piper contributed to this report.
There’s been no shortage of top political figures attending World Cup matches to cheer on their home teams, but when Spain faces off against France in the tournament’s semifinals in Dallas today, neither the country’s head of state nor its head of government will be in the stands.
Spanish King Felipe VI traveled to Guadalajara, Mexico, to witness the national team’s triumph over Uruguay last month but has been unable to attend the subsequent matches against Austria, Portugal and Belgium due to his packed royal agenda, which will also block him from being present at Tuesday’s match. Shortly before the players take the field, the royal family is due to preside over the annual Princess of Girona Awards ceremony in Barcelona, during which they will recognize the achievements of young Spanish and Latin American artists, researchers and social workers.
The absences aren’t representative of the king’s commitment to Spanish football: The monarch is a keen supporter of the national team, and underscored his support in May, when he appeared in the video unveiling the players selected to represent the country in the World Cup. Following the match in Mexico last month, Felipe VI took the unusual step of joining the players in the locker room to personally congratulate them for their victory against Uruguay.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will also miss the match.
The head of Spain’s government has been invited to attend the Bastille Day celebrations in Paris, which will also keep French President Emmanuel Macron away from the game. Sánchez is expected to return home afterward to focus on the response to the devastating wildfires in which dozens of people have died near Spain’s Mediterranean coast.
If Spain makes it to the final, the royal family is expected to be on hand to cheer the national team on, just as it did when its players won the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
But it’s unclear if Sánchez intends to travel. Although the prime minister has repeatedly expressed his support for Spain’s players, he has not committed to attend the tournament. That stance isn’t unusual: Spain’s prime ministers traditionally celebrate the country’s victorious athletes once sporting events have concluded and they’re back in Madrid.
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