Story on racism and sports

Monday, 26 March, 2001, 14:28 GMT 15:28 UK

Racism hits SAFA World Cup tie

Soccer City will now host South Africa v Zimbabwe

The segregation of South Africa's apartheid past has reappeared in Cape Town where municipal officials are preventing football from being played in an expensive white residential area.

Cape Town City Council is requiring that a special permit be obtained before any football matches are allowed at the Newlands rugby and cricket stadiums which lie adjacent to each other and are the biggest sporting venues in the city.

This has led to the South African Football Association withdrawing its plan to host a World Cup qualifier in Cape Town.

South Africa's crucial qualifier against Zimbabwe was due to be held at Newlands rugby stadium on May 5 but SAFA said it would now be played at Johannesburg's Soccer City venue because of the racist attitude of Cape Town's municipality.

The council in Cape Town is controlled by the opposition Democratic Alliance, who recently refused to allow Premier League club Santos to play its matches at the cricket venue.

Special permit

Under pressure from the local ratepayers' association, who fear the influx of majority black crowds into the leafy suburb, the council has invoked an old apartheid-era ordinance that requires a special permit for soccer matches to be staged at the two venues.

South Africa have won all three games so far, including this success over Burkina Faso

Ironically, another Premier League club Ajax Cape Town have been playing at Newlands rugby stadium all season but now have to apply for the same permit.

SAFA decided to move the World Cup match at their meeting in Port Elizabeth over the weekend.

"This is very sad that so many years after the end of apartheid we still come up against these attitudes," said SAFA chief executive officer Danny Jordaan.

A SAFA statement added: "We note with extreme concern the hard-line attitude of the city officials in Cape Town.

"These attitudes hark back to the days when council in other major cities across the country refused to allow soccer to be played in their stadiums, simply because it was seen as a black sports and most of the spectators were black.

Residents' complaints

"We will not be forced to seek a permit to play football in the way people had to carry permits and identity papers under the old apartheid regime."

We will not be forced to seek a permit to play football in the way people had to carry permits and identity papers under the old apartheid regime

SAFA statement

Professional soccer in South Africa suffered several similar incidents during the country's apartheid era, which ended almost a decade again now.

The capital Pretoria banned a white-owned club, Arcadia, from playing at their home ground in the city centre because of complaints from residents about rowdy black spectators.

The team, ironically, were forced to move their home ground to a black township on the outskirts of the city.

In Johannesburg, city officials banned professional football, which had been mixed since 1978, from the showpiece Rand Stadium because of complaints from white residents.

The stadium boasted among the best facilities in the country but for years only staged amateur football games.

May 27 Assignment

1. One of the statistics that impressed me was the mean family income for Asians; the highes one of all categories. I was curious and did some reasearch on my own and found out the Asians were the race that adapted quickest to the American culture. They explain as well that the high numbers are due to the fact that in Asian families, 5 to 6 members are working and that will explain the increased mean income of the family. Another statistic that shocked me was the percentage of highschool graduates of the Hispanics (46%) and of the Asians compared to the white population (86%; 89%). Also, the number of Asians with college degrees is higher than that of white people (49%; 30%). I think that the statistics are hgiher for the Asian pupulation due to the Simpson's Paradox. The fact that there are significantly more whites that Asians it is understandable if the percentages are lower. If the actual number of people were given, the discrepancies would be more relevant. I believe that for the rest of the statistics, those that include bank loans, owning a home, being stopped by the police, they are haphazardous. A controlled experiment would need to be carried out to obtain conclusive evidence. I also read about how black children have a higher probability of drowning when in pools or beahces due to the racial divide in the sport. It is said that when blacks arrived from Africa to America, they were not allowed to swim (for they thought that was a method of escape) and thus generations of black did not know how to swim. As America became more integrated public pools (that at the time only accepted whites) closed instead of accpeting blacks in.
2. There are some theories that athletes, with specific origins, have a predetemriend ability to to better at that particular sport. Some have been proven wrong and some right. For instance, the fact that mostly Kenyans and people of West African descent win races in the Olympics is because it has been shown they have fast-twitching muscles that allow them to run faster. This is opposed to the theory that black people can't swim because they are less buoyant. Most black people have a hard time swimming due to the racial divide on the sport. They also refer to the environment and sports. They give the examples of hispanics and hot weather. It is said that becaus they live in tropical weathers they have a greater resistance to heat and thus explains their great performance in baseball. That statement is false. They also say that white people are better at sports in the snow because they are better suited to this environment; the statement is partly true but not becaus ethey endure the cold necessarily, but because of their wealth, knowledge of the geography of the location and antional interest.
3. To prejudge someone is to basically speculate on the person's intentions, personality, culture, origin, religion, etc. based on your first impression of his/her physical characteristics. Sometimes when you meet a new person you start formulating ideas in your head on how the person might be (personality, interests, charatcer, etc); but that is part of the human species. It has been scientifically proven that the visual first impression of something is a deciding factor in whether we like the something in question or not. Usually, when you meet someone, you judge the person by what he is wearing, his face, accessories, the way he speaks, the shape of his eyes, size of the nose, the way the ehar is arranged.
4. The story will be posted in a spearate post above.