«An English fan, sentenced to 14 weeks in prison for the racist insults to several players during the Euro Cup. «Sentenced to six months in prison to an English fan for racist insults to Ferdinand. “Sentenced to three months in prison “A French fan is suspended for racist insults to a Valenciennes player.” “You They take a point away from Toulouse for the xenophobic behavior of their fans towards the rival goalkeeper. «171 Juventus ultras banned and fined for racist chants against Lukaku”… In recent years, European football has been increasingly forceful against the scourge of racism but Spain now the focus of criticism, seems to walk through a labyrinth when it comes to punishing harshly the chants and insults that use someone’s race to hurt them.
The social problem is clear: there are more and more people who go to a football stadium and decide to make racist insults against a footballer or a coach. The data is there, and so are the complaints. LaLiga, without sanctioning competitions, is the great promoter of the claims against these events, evidencing how since 2020 insults and criminal complaints have multiplied. They are already more than 20 for four years.
He article 510 of the Penal Code establishes prison sentences of one to four years for “promoting or fomenting hatred against an individual because of their race” and six months to two years for those who “injure the dignity of people through actions that involve humiliation, contempt or discredit” for its race. But the papers seem to fall on deaf ears. Because?
«Slowness and lack of means»
Still today, in April 2024, Iñaki Williams keep waiting for the judgment about the racist insults he received on January 25, 2020, more than four years ago. The case, the first criminal case in the history of Spain for racism during a football match, is in the Cornellà Courts awaiting oral trial. The Prosecutor’s Office requests two years in prison for the accused, a ban on access to stadiums for five years and a fine of more than 5,000 euros.
But the judicial development, slow but constant, of the Cornellà process is far from others that occurred months later in Spanish football. The Prosecutor’s Office filed In September 2022, the complaint for racist insults to Vinicius at Camp Nou, in October 2021, as the Police were unable to identify the person responsible. It was the beginning of the Brazilian’s war against racism in Spanish football, a fight that angered the striker when he also saw the case filed after the insults he received in Son Moix in March 2022.
«The Spanish judicial system is a fairly guaranteeing system for the prisoner. There must be certainty that he has committed that crime. And that system implies slowness, also due to lack of means,” he explains. Nicolas de la Plata, professor in Sports Law at the European University, who analyzes the different sanctioning areas of Spanish sport: «On the one hand, criminal proceedings. On the other hand, the sporting route, through the Competition Committee, which cannot go against a fan because he does not have a federation license, only against the club. And on the other hand, the administrative route, through the Anti-Violence Committeewhich may propose a sanction to the Government subdelegation.
Criminal or administrative?
And it is there, in the labyrinth of sanctioning systems, where racism in Spanish football does not find its way out. «The administrative route is quick, but if in parallel it is taken to the criminal route, In most cases you have to wait», insists De la Plata. That is, before waiting for case files, investigations without many tools and eternal processes in court, experts prefer financial fines and sanctions from clubs to their members. «Except serious issues, Racism in sport in Spain has to be fixed through sporting and administrative disciplinary means.. It is more effective than criminal proceedings. Financial fines and closure of stands. “Let all the fans see that it affects them,” he adds.
Meanwhile, a dozen complaints remain on the table in the Spanish courts. The prosecutors slip that there are too many, many with audio tests but no image, or vice versa, which makes the investigation tortuous. And while, also, the racists replicate their shameful actions in other stadiums.