Uruguay's football players have joined forces to emphatically condemn Edinson Cavani's three-match ban for using a racial term and accused the FA of committing a 'true discriminatory act' by punishing the Manchester United striker.
Cavani was hit with the suspension after using the word 'negrito' in an Instagram post after the club's victory over Southampton on November 29, before taking it down and apologising.
The United forward, who was also fined £100,000 and ordered to complete 'face-to-face education', accepted his punishment but insisted he was expressing himself 'according to my culture and way of life' and that the post was intended to show affection towards a friend.
In a strongly worded statement, the Uruguayan Football Players Association said:
We must condemn the arbitrary conduct of the English Football Association. Far from condemning racism, the English Football Association has itself committed a discriminatory act against the culture and way of life of the Uruguayan people.
The sanction shows the English Football Association's biased, dogmatic and ethnocentric vision that only allows a subjective interpretation to be made from its particular and excluding conclusion, however flawed it may be.
Edinson Cavani has never committed any conduct that could be interpreted as racist. He merely used a common expression in Latin America to affectionately address a love one or close friend. To sustain that the only way to obtain a valid interpretation in life is that which lies in the minds of the managers of the English Football Association is actually a true discriminatory act, which is completely reprehensible and against Uruguayan culture.
We would therefore like to publicly defend Edinson Cavani's impeccable character and of course our country's culture. We are all against any kind of discrimination; however unfortunately, through its sanction, the English Football Association expresses absolute ignorance and disdain for a multicultural vision of the world, respectful of its plurality, by erroneously, unilaterally and rigidly imposing its anti-racist rules, the basis of which we support but are obviously not realistically applicable to the case in question here.
It has not punished one person, but also our whole culture, our way of life, which is truly a discriminatory and racist act.
Lastly, we urged the English Football Association to review its decision-making processes related to these issues immediately so that it does not commit any similar injustice ever again. Its regulations should take into account the plurality of people's ways of life and cultures. The first rule to fight against racism is to respect such different ways of life and cultures.
By virtue of the foregoing, we request the FA to immediately overturn the sanction imposed on Edinson Cavani and reinstate his good name and honour in the world that has been son unfairly tarnished by this reprehensible decision.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-9111137/Uruguay-players-join-forces-SLAM-FA-Edinson-Cavanis-ban-negrito-Instagram-post.html
Uruguay players accuse FA of discrimination
posted on 4/1/21
uruguay are spot on
showing up anglo hypocrisy
posted on 4/1/21
comment by Winston (U16525)
posted 2 hours, 3 minutes ago
comment by Mi Pelea (U18355)
posted 14 seconds ago
There is the context and the fact that Suarez did it on the pitch.
Kind of pathetic that the FA are trawling though SM looking for excuses to ban people
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Yes, location is also key imo.
The FA are punishing a footballer for something he has said away from any football ground or facility.
That doesn't sit well with me.
What would happen if this exchange took place between a Uruguayan and his team mate while on International duty, with neither in the UK at the time?
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I would love to see that. They believe they can determine what words mean in another language. I have no doubt this would still apply if the player was on foreign soil at the time of posting.
Also people need to stop comparing it to the Suarez incident which clearly had two opposing versions of events from two individuals. Also the word used was completely different. Evra claimed Suarez said 'ni**er', Suarez claimed he said 'negro', the Spanish word for 'black'.
The Cavani incident was as clear as day. He used a word, 'negrito' used for people with darker skin or hair colour, no necessarily black skinned. It has no racial connotations whatsoever, it's simply about appearance and is a term of endearment.
posted on 4/1/21
comment by Constantinople (U11781)
posted 2 hours, 36 minutes ago
Funny they never did this with Suarez eh, maybe they knew he was a dirty old racist after all
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part black, probably part native american luis suarez this is ?
a racist ?
posted on 4/1/21
comment by Don Draper's dandruff (U20155)
posted 2 hours, 9 minutes ago
comment by Winston (U16525)
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Yes, location is also key imo.
The FA are punishing a footballer for something he has said away from any football ground or facility.
That doesn't sit well with me.
What would happen if this exchange took place between a Uruguayan and his team mate while on International duty, with neither in the UK at the time?
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it is a teeny bit odd that footballers can, let's say, get arrested by greek police, crash a car and flee the scene, or break COVID protocols, and the FA doesn't get involved; yet a clumsy social media post is punished as bringing the game into disrepute.
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Great point.
And not sure how Maguire wasn’t stripped of all the captaincies. Not that I’d necessarily agree, but in keeping with their ridiculous rules
posted on 4/1/21
comment by Everywhere you go always take Lamela with you. (U7905)
posted 2 hours, 44 minutes ago
Not really followed this. Was Suarez not done for the same word?
Don't think it matters what is culturally acceptable elsewhere, words based on skin colour here, even affectionately aren't really acceptable in the public eye. Sure, amongst your mates say whatever you are all feel comfortable with, but can't be doing that on social media.
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I take your point but its the punishment that doesn't sit right.
It would have been very reasonable to say to Cavani that the word isn't acceptable here and let that be the end of it. Its what anyone with an ounce of common sense would have done - in fact its what United did do in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
The fact that they see fit to go to the extent of punishing him for it just shows the level of virtue signalling idiots we have running things at the FA who don't actually understand the problem they are dealing with.
posted on 4/1/21
Context is key. The FA is a joke
posted on 4/1/21
comment by Bennyville (U8058)
posted 4 hours, 3 minutes ago
Think it’s a difficult situation to be honest. There was no clear intent there from Cavani to cause offence to anyone. There are clear cultural differences in relation to the use of that word. But you have to factor in the effect a player like cavani has by using that word exposed to young football fans in a country where that word is not used in a friendly context. Think he just needs to take his medicine and accept it to be honest.
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It's not difficult. At all. It's inevitable when you claim to be a multi cultural society. I've lived in a Muslim country, if I ever did something that was actually out of order, I'd apologise, people accepted it, we moved on. They would understand that I wasn't aware that what I said or did was a no no, I'm English and not Muslim.
I've said all along, this isn't how you combat racism. Doing this isn't going to make anybody think "hmmmm, maybe I'm wrong in the way I think".
At best, noone really cares, nothing changes. At worst you fuel already bubbling ignorance and give these people more ammunition.
If anyone thinks this type of behaviour will do the slightest jot to tackle the issue of racism then their an utter fool. It's what people completely out of touch would think to do. People who are more bothered about the perception of them than they are doing something.
You can't be sensitive to one minority by being insensitive to another.
It's similar to 'taking the knee'. It does nothing for victims and just winds up the aggravators. Community projects, dialogue, open speech and things that bring people together. Put time into that, put the effort and focus on getting into schools and educating kids, encourage and facilitate debates.
Policing speech in this way is a sad indication of the direction we're going. He's been well and truly hung out to dry on this. The ban is bad enough but the horrendously patronising "face to face education" is embarrassing.
It's a really poor way to handle the entire thing.
posted on 5/1/21
comment by TheFoxOutsideTheBox (U20459)
posted 10 hours, 43 minutes ago
comment by Bennyville (U8058)
posted 4 hours, 3 minutes ago
Think it’s a difficult situation to be honest. There was no clear intent there from Cavani to cause offence to anyone. There are clear cultural differences in relation to the use of that word. But you have to factor in the effect a player like cavani has by using that word exposed to young football fans in a country where that word is not used in a friendly context. Think he just needs to take his medicine and accept it to be honest.
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It's not difficult. At all. It's inevitable when you claim to be a multi cultural society. I've lived in a Muslim country, if I ever did something that was actually out of order, I'd apologise, people accepted it, we moved on. They would understand that I wasn't aware that what I said or did was a no no, I'm English and not Muslim.
I've said all along, this isn't how you combat racism. Doing this isn't going to make anybody think "hmmmm, maybe I'm wrong in the way I think".
At best, noone really cares, nothing changes. At worst you fuel already bubbling ignorance and give these people more ammunition.
If anyone thinks this type of behaviour will do the slightest jot to tackle the issue of racism then their an utter fool. It's what people completely out of touch would think to do. People who are more bothered about the perception of them than they are doing something.
You can't be sensitive to one minority by being insensitive to another.
It's similar to 'taking the knee'. It does nothing for victims and just winds up the aggravators. Community projects, dialogue, open speech and things that bring people together. Put time into that, put the effort and focus on getting into schools and educating kids, encourage and facilitate debates.
Policing speech in this way is a sad indication of the direction we're going. He's been well and truly hung out to dry on this. The ban is bad enough but the horrendously patronising "face to face education" is embarrassing.
It's a really poor way to handle the entire thing.
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Absolutely spot on.
posted on 5/1/21
the cavani 3 match ban is a joke
patronizing anglo culture at its worse
it's the english speaking world that has made "black" a bad word
it's loaded with all this guilt, badness, slavery etc
only in the english speaking world...and they try to put their own neurosis on to others
posted on 5/1/21
it's a term of affection and endearment in uruguay ffs