Official : Mario Balotelli signs for Liverpool

while it's obvious what's problematic about that picture (i.e. "mexicans have moustaches" and "jews grab coin" is not on the same level of maliciousness as stereotypes go) it takes quite some stretch to interpret him posting it, under the header "don't be racist" no less, as trying to promote those stereotypes, rather than interpreting it as using them ironically.
Pretty sure you can comprehend that, even if the FA can't.

Imo he deserved a lengthy ban for being a fraud of a football player more than anything else.


World Class potential my ass, people just like to throw around words like 'Potential' because technically you can't be proven wrong until the player is in his late 20s.

Mr Nick09 wrote:have the lots of you fallen on your heads? you are actually defending balo? lmao

he posts a picture with the words "...jumps like a black man and grabs coin like a jew" and you think it's normal

what the f.uck are you thinking?

first of all, he deserves the ban for  posting some crap that's completely inappropriate, and another for sheer stupidity. it doesn't matter what the intent was, nothing excuse stupidity especially when we are talking about race issues.

that picture with the caption is a complete disgrace, he is lucky he got just one game ban

and the other muppet up there throw in ISIS in the conversation as if it's supposed to be funny. what are you doing mcagger?

The FA is one thing as its quite obvious they're idiots, but with all due respect I find it incredibly difficult to belief an intelligent human being actually would find it in them to blame Balo for this. He's someone that has been racially abused his entire life, and the FA has the nerve to ban him for trying to use humor to combat racism? It's absolutely disgusting to be honest, Hans said it perfectly.

Mr Nick09 wrote:have the lots of you fallen on your heads? you are actually defending balo? lmao

he posts a picture with the words "...jumps like a black man and grabs coin like a jew" and you think it's normal

what the f.uck are you thinking?

first of all, he deserves the ban for  posting some crap that's completely inappropriate, and another for sheer stupidity. it doesn't matter what the intent was, nothing excuse stupidity especially when we are talking about race issues.

that picture with the caption is a complete disgrace, he is lucky he got just one game ban

I actually don't even know how to respond to this post, except with this: people like you are exactly why society is going to shit (unless you are joking).

I don't see what he posted as being humour, maybe the intent was but it just looked incredible offensive to me. And in a working environment they are completely unacceptable. It's not about his life story, we can all be sensible to that, but the wording in that picture is incredibly poor. I don't excuse idiocy simply because "he was abused his entire life".

In fact, being in the position he is, he should be more careful of what he does when it comes to race issues, as well as the way and the message he wants to put forth.

Again, as a business, FA are in their infinite right to come down on him with a ban. It's not their business to worry about his life or what he went through.

The mistake you are making here is assuming that everyone will look at that picture and think exactly the same as you do: Balotelli is a victim of abuse, he is just being funny, it's the Balotelli we all know and love, he is an idiot but he meant no harm. No, it's not the job of other people to interpret what the intent of the message was. He is 20+, he is adult enough to make his point in an intelligible fashion.

There are societal problems that shouldn't be joked with or about. Racism and homophobia are examples, terrorism is another one. Too many people suffer from those issues on a daily basis for it to be something that's "funny" because Balotelli is trying to make a point on social medias.

Mr Nick09 wrote:I don't see what he posted as being humour, maybe the intent was but it just looked incredible offensive to me. And in a working environment they are completely unacceptable. It's not about his life story, we can all be sensible to that, but the wording in that picture is incredibly poor. I don't excuse idiocy simply because "he was abused his entire life".

In fact, being in the position he is, he should be more careful of what he does when it comes to race issues, as well as the way and the message he wants to put forth.

Again, as a business, FA are in their infinite right to come down on him with a ban. It's not their business to worry about his life or what he went through.

Honestly the only explanation I have is there's some sort of language or culture barrier and you're not seeing the humor. In my mind however it was clearly tongue in cheek and his intentions were to fight against racism rather than promote it.

which would explain the headline "don't be racist"...

I am not seeing the humour at all, i refuse to see it, and the assumption that we should all take it as a funny punt from Balotelli the big hearted guy is unbelievably poor.

Doesn't matter that he wrote "Don't be a racist", and then i read the words that i mentioned up there.

It's about the same as someone saying "I am not a racist, but i don't like x people", what a joke

Mr Nick09 wrote:have the lots of you fallen on your heads? you are actually defending balo? lmao

he posts a picture with the words "...jumps like a black man and grabs coin like a jew" and you think it's normal

what the f.uck are you thinking?

first of all, he deserves the ban for  posting some crap that's completely inappropriate, and another for sheer stupidity. it doesn't matter what the intent was, nothing excuse stupidity especially when we are talking about race issues.

that picture with the caption is a complete disgrace, he is lucky he got just one game ban

and the other muppet up there throw in ISIS in the conversation as if it's supposed to be funny. what are you doing mcagger?

It has to do with consistency. I can understand the FA being upset with the "grabs coins like a Jew" line. That's fine. But they consistently turn a blind eye to other counts of racism, especially the times when it has been aimed at balotelli himself.

My issue is that had Wayne Rooney, or someone else posted that picture I doubt they would have done anything. We all talk about Joey Barton's Twitter. How many idiotic/racist things has he posted on Twitter and how much was he fined / how many games has he been banned for things said on his online account? Consistent treatment and protection of black players by the FA would certainly be welcome. But they seem to be incredibly critical and overly harsh anytime black players say anything slightly off color, but let the good old white English boys get away with bloody murder

Nick I feel like you're not really taking into account the context. From a white American yeah you would have to be retarded and would rightfully be outraged. From Balotelli who has been repeatedly the victim of racist abuse? Clearly he is not a racist and was just having fun.

Mr Nick09 wrote:
It's about the same as someone saying "I am not a racist, but i don't like x people", what a joke

except there's clearly no "I'm not ..but" in the picture, it's a completely different type of speech. It's "don't be ..".

Fwiw, I guess Balotelli didn't make the picture, he probably found it somewhere and posted it as he thought it was funny or something.
I too find it questionable, but surely the intent is not in question. So what the FA should have done, is leave it be.

Because you can argue all day and night at what point the joking, humourous, deadpan, whatever, use of stereotypes becomes offensive, and depending on who uses it in what situation.
It's tricky terrain, which the FA is clearly neither the instance nor the authority to navigate and judge.

You argument can't possibly be that "If someone else had done, nothing would have happened"...

We are not and shouldn't be dealing with hypothesis. Do you know why no one else posted such picture? because it's an awful way to voice your opinion vs racism. 99.99% BPL players got that except Balotelli.

As far as this situation, Balotelli is to blame for his own decision making. If you want to criticize the FA in general for their handling of all other situations, that's another debate entirely, and i wouldn't have enough knowledge to engage you there.

I'm sorry, but if you can't see that in the fight against racism this ban is as mindlessly and misguidedly actionist as it gets I'm really at a loss.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Nick I feel like you're not really taking into account the context. From a white American yeah you would have to be retarded and would rightfully be outraged. From Balotelli who has been repeatedly the victim of racist abuse? Clearly he is not a racist and was just having fun.

Exactly, the context doesn't interest me. It's not my job to assume his intent.

For someone who has been victim of racism as you say, i personally think it's incredibly poor.

The FA banned him because in a business context it's not the type of messaging they want their players to be apart of. Simple as that, as i said on the other page, it's a company culture and there are rules for players as well.

I found that messaging to be offensive, that's my opinion. I feel like you guys take it as good humour, specifically because it's balotelli that posted it. In the fight vs racism sure, it's a water drop in the ocean, but that's a good example to me of a situation where someone could have something positive to say about racism, to actually inspire people, but ends up offending some because he can't express himself properly.

It's excusable, yet he still deserves to be held accountable for the things he "says"

Mr Nick09 wrote: but that's a good example to me of a situation where someone could have something positive to say about racism, to actually inspire people, but ends up offending some because he can't express himself properly.

It's excusable, yet he still deserves to be held accountable for the things he "says"

sure, but not through a FA BAN. People can answer him on twitter, journalists can write articles, whatever.

Nick.

You can tell Nick has a 'company man' job.

Agree 100% with Nick.

The Premier League is a BUSINESS. it's a company, in many respect it's not very different from the places where we all work on a daily basis.

They care about their messaging and the way they are represented by players. Balo posting on instagram, while being a BPL player, is representing them in a way. They are absolutely in their right to BAN him for that.

Balo isnt "free" to speak his mind however he pleases. As i said, he can stop playing for liverpool and post whatever he wants on twitter or instagram, pretty sure the FA won't do him a thing

Anyways, he's injured and wouldn't have played the next match regardless. So the ban means absolutely nothing.

this whole company culture talk is so unbelievably annoying.

Balotelli is not employed by the FA.
The FA are the federation that organizes professional football, that's it, they're are not a company that owns football and has the copyright on anything pertaining to it.
The players are not playing for the FA, they are playing for their club's fans ffs. Football is a part of society.

These clowns should see to it that their referees can differentiate between different black kids playing for the same team ffs, instead of playing semantics police for a antiracist Balotelli tweet.

It's funny, get over it. Some people are just too sensitive.

Mr Nick09 wrote:The Premier League is a BUSINESS. it's a company, in many respect it's not very different from the places where we all work on a daily basis.

They care about their messaging and the way they are represented by players. Balo posting on instagram, while being a BPL player, is representing them in a way. They are absolutely in their right to BAN him for that.

Balo isnt "free" to speak his mind however he pleases. As i said, he can stop playing for liverpool and post whatever he wants on twitter or instagram, pretty sure the FA won't do him a thing

So the FA doesn't want their players speaking out against racism?

No one is questioning the right the FA has to ban Balo, we're questioning the intelligence of it, since its as far away from racist as can be.

You cant use generalized insulting words and get away with it. There is nothing wrong with saying ''Jumps like a black man'' because its not insulting...but "Grabs money like a Jew" , really? its racially insulting term. If FA dont punish him then some other footballer will say something like ''he bombs like a muslim'' and they wont be able to punish him either.You dont want to get punished? then stop using these generalized insulting terms.

I agree that that's the crux, the difference inquality between the stereotypes he cited.
But there you go, that's why I said it's tricky terrain.

Because I'm pretty sure it can be argued that "black people can jump" can be pretty racist and offensive too, if you consider it pertains to notions that black people are good at sports but not anything else, like animals etc pp.

Hapless_Hans wrote:I can not believe they actually banned him for that twitter thing titled 'don't be racist'. Un *bleep* believable. Don't they have some better way to spend their time.

Face it guys... He just wants to create more controversy. Its who he is, creating problems in his life to get attention... He deserves this ban. He will never learn if he doesn't get punished. You bought him, you deal with his behavior (to liver fans)

ACMRox wrote:

Mr Nick09 wrote:The Premier League is a BUSINESS. it's a company, in many respect it's not very different from the places where we all work on a daily basis.

They care about their messaging and the way they are represented by players. Balo posting on instagram, while being a BPL player, is representing them in a way. They are absolutely in their right to BAN him for that.

Balo isnt "free" to speak his mind however he pleases. As i said, he can stop playing for liverpool and post whatever he wants on twitter or instagram, pretty sure the FA won't do him a thing

So the FA doesn't want their players speaking out against racism?

No one is questioning the right the FA has to ban Balo, we're questioning the intelligence of it, since its as far away from racist as can be.

of course they do, i am sure they would love it if more players were speaking out against racism.

There are just intelligible ways to do so, what Balotelli did wasn't that at all

Meh, what a joke.