Sacchi: Too many blacks in Italian youth teams

Bénin wrote:Maybe he meant '' black ''  and not foreigners. There are more white foreigners in the Italian NT than black ones right now ( Thiago Motta ans Osvaldo versus Balotelli ) .
I bet that for some people they would rather have white foreigners in their teams than black foreigners. Nothing with being necessarily racist tho. So when he use '' black '' I don't think he meant foreigners. I'm a black person and I fully understand if an Italian would rather have 10 Osvaldo in his team than 10 Balotelli .  

Bénin wrote:

Art Morte wrote:He shouldn't have used the word 'blacks', 'foreigners' would have done and not sounded racist. His worry is a legitimate one, though, the question that what are the criteria for a player to be eligible to play for a country and are they too loose or tight or just right as things stand.

Maybe he meant '' black ''  and not foreigners. There are more white foreigners in the Italian NT than black ones right now ( Thiago Motta ans Osvaldo versus Balotelli ) .
I bet that for some people they would rather have white foreigners in their teams than black foreigners. Nothing with being necessarily racist tho. So when he use '' black '' I don't think he meant foreigners. I'm a black person and I fully understand if an Italian would rather have 10 Osvaldo in his team than 10 Balotelli .  

sportsczy wrote:Yeah... i mean i just have to laugh when Sacchi says he didn't mean it as a racist remark.  What is it then?? I don't think he meant it maliciously however; at least i hope not. But he's a very backwards and ignorant person if he truly believes what he said.

sportsczy wrote:There's racism everywhere to varying degrees.  Problem i found interesting in Europe is that people are clearly racist and think they're not  It's hilarious.

If race is a factor in whatever action, decision, etc.... it's racism.  There's malicious and unfair racism and harmless/benign racism on each side of the spectrum... but it's still racism

The problem is that something that seems harmless to you may in fact be very hurtful to the target... that's why racism of any kind is unacceptable.

sportsczy wrote:Yeah... i mean i just have to laugh when Sacchi says he didn't mean it as a racist remark.  What is it then?? I don't think he meant it maliciously however; at least i hope not. But he's a very backwards and ignorant person if he truly believes what he said.

Yohan Modric wrote:Just because they're black, doesn't mean they're foreign and weren't born in Italy. He is aware that people from different races ARE born into European countries, right?

Lupi wrote:

Yohan Modric wrote:Just because they're black, doesn't mean they're foreign and weren't born in Italy. He is aware that people from different races ARE born into European countries, right?

""Italian football is now without dignity or pride because it makes too many foreigners playing also in the youth teams,"
then he goes on detail that 4>3>2>1. He saw more black players that's why he said there are many black players. Racism? are you kidding me?

sportsczy wrote:Yeah... i mean i just have to laugh when Sacchi says he didn't mean it as a racist remark.  What is it then?? I don't think he meant it maliciously however; at least i hope not. But he's a very backwards and ignorant person if he truly believes what he said.

farfan wrote:you agree 100 % that italian born & raised players who are black should be excluded from Italy's national team / youth systems ?

jibers wrote:

farfan wrote:you agree 100 % that italian born & raised players who are black should be excluded from Italy's national team / youth systems ?

Let me ask you this, do you think Italians who are Italian by heritage (born there and family have been Italians for generations) would be happy if they fielded an xi of black players?

If they aren't happy with it does that make them racist?

Elizabeth Cotignola wrote:

Juventus and Laura Barriales are symptoms of Italy’s larger culture of sexism

I agree with mostly with what Robes says, seeing his comments i can't stop thinking about a certain article a couple of months ago about sexism in Italy:

As introductions go, Laura Barriales’ was unconventional. The 32-year-old Spanish model is the new face of Juventus TV, and last month, the Bianconeri unveiled the club’s most recent ‘signing’ in a rather provocative manner. The announcement was accompanied by a series of images of her dressed in the club’s jersey with micro mini-shorts or in a suit jacket with an equally minuscule skirt. The word ‘unveiled’ could almost be literal in this context.

Miss Barriales has a wealth of experience in the industry and is a lifelong fan of Juventus legend Zinedine Zidane, but you can only imagine her experience and affiliation were completely lost on the adoring audience to whom she was introduced. The intent behind her introduction was about as obvious as the result an Andrea Pirlo free kick, and unsurprisingly, the stunt has prompted accusations of sexism to which the club has yet to respond.

It is unlikely it ever will. Barriales’ presentation, outside of Italy, was seen as shockingly sexist – a blatant appeal to the banal. Yet in Italy, it barely merited the blink of an eye. From the Italian point of view, though, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about it.




Scantily clad and surgically altered to perfection, they stand voiceless next to aging, lecherous male hosts. Their long legs, minuscule waists and large breasts are accentuated by camera angles more suited to pornography than public broadcasts. These are the women who parade across screens on primetime Italian television, objectified to an extent unparalleled by other European television networks. If somebody’s only information about women in Italy was derived from the country’s visual media, they would deduce women existed only as sex objects to be publicly demeaned and humiliated.

In 2009, an online documentary, Lorella Zanardo’s Il Corpo Delle Donne (The Body Of Women, below), confronted this depressing reality. For just over a month, Zanardo and her collaborators watched and recorded various programs for 10 hours per day — a total of 1080 hours of television — and edited the footage into a 25-minute video. The documentary, which to date has been seen by millions of viewers worldwide, reveals the unparalleled exploitation of the female form in the Italian media.

The film also brought to light an ideal of feminine beauty that has been reduced to a fragmented collection of body parts. The female self is presented as nothing more than a collection of corporeal elements; specifically, those most sexually appealing for the male gaze. Zanardo argues that “real women … are an endangered species on television, one that is being replaced by a grotesque, vulgar and humiliating representation.” In essence, the Italian media equates a woman’s entire identity with her body. Its representation of women is homogenous; its sole focus the culture of beauty.

To outsiders, Barriales’ introduction was a cynical appeal to the lowest common denominator. In Italy, however, it was the polar opposite; it was innocuous. The debut was less a ploy by Juventus than the inevitable product of prevailing cultural norms.




This representation of women is symptomatic of what scholars have described as a disturbing trend towards the sexualisation of culture and the “pornographication of the public sphere.”[1] It is also a uniquely Italian aberration – a function of Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi’s unchallenged control of the Italian media and his exploitation of women for political gain. It is impossible to understand Italian television’s impact on the nation’s culture and politics without understanding how la spazzatura, trash television, became Berlusconi’s primary contribution to modern Italian history.

Television came to Italy in 1954, when its sole channel, RAI, was introduced by the ruling Christian Democratic Party. For decades, the highlight of its programming was the Pope’s Sunday morning mass. Then, in 1976, Italy’s highest court allowed private broadcasting on a local level. Berlusconi, who by then had amassed a fortune in suburban housing developments, began to buy up local stations and broadcast the same content on all of them.

In the early 1980s, he established his own private broadcasting company, which aired a game show on which a blindfolded housewife removed an article of clothing for every correct answer phoned in by the audience. Some 30 years later, the tycoon who once made his living crooning show tunes on cruise ships had become Italy’s Prime Minister. Throughout his time in office, Berlusconi controlled a staggering 90 percent of Italy’s television market, including the three most prominent public channels: Rai Uno, Rai Due and Rai Tre, which became a mouthpiece for his government.

On Italian television, it is next to impossible to find a representation of a woman appreciated for something other than her appearance. Alarmingly, these images have moved off the television screen to manifest in the realities of Italian life. Italy is among the worst countries in Europe with respect to the gender gap, and until recently, Italian women were either reluctant to demand improvement in their status or largely invisible in their protests.

While Berlusconi is no longer in office, his legacy — the introduction of la spazzatura – endures through the velina – the sexy, seminude showgirl that remains ubiquitous on Italian television. To many Italian women, life as a velina has become enviable; it connotes public appeal and easy money. The velina’s prominence has also given rise to two other distinctly Italian phenomena: il velinismo and la velinocrazia. The former refers to this aspiration among young women; the latter, to describe the velina’s potential access to power and political influence.[2]

The second term entered the lexicon because of a specific velina, Mara Carfagna, a former Miss Italia hopeful who was appointed Berlusconi’s Minister for Equal Opportunities in 2008. Despite her degree in law from the University of Salerno, one of the nation’s most revered universities, Carfagna opted to pursue a career as a beauty pageant contestant, showgirl and occasional topless model. In 2009, she was one of a multitude of women with show business backgrounds and no political training who Berlusconi unsuccessfully attempted to put forth for parliament, attempting to make the velina into a political tool. Indeed, despite the controversial legislation she championed during her tenure, Carfagna is still known best for her beauty, with her most significant accomplishment to date her selection as the “world’s hottest politician” by Maxim magazine.

In a culture where even politicians are sex objects, Laura Barriales’ display is sadly not at all shocking. Indeed, some women in Italy achieve political prowess precisely because they are sex objects. The subliminal message is clear: it would appear that the greatest success to which women in Italy can aspire is sexual objectification.




Even beyond the borders of the peninsula, the landscape looks bleak. The beautiful game, it should be remembered, is not exactly a bastion of equality and progress in this regard. Sexism is entrenched in the sport’s culture. What else is to be expected when the man who serves as the world’s steward of the sport, when asked how to raise the profile of the women’s game, suggests that the ladies wear “tighter shorts?”

As one of Italy’s most widely supported and internationally renowned clubs, Juventus is uniquely positioned to act as a catalyst for change. La Vecchia Signora’s pedigree speaks for itself. She need not pander to anyone or anything, least of all stereotypes that do more to portray Italy in a negative light than help a struggling league return to its former prominence.

jibers wrote:

Lupi wrote:

Yohan Modric wrote:Just because they're black, doesn't mean they're foreign and weren't born in Italy. He is aware that people from different races ARE born into European countries, right?

""Italian football is now without dignity or pride because it makes too many foreigners playing also in the youth teams,"
then he goes on detail that 4>3>2>1. He saw more black players that's why he said there are many black players. Racism? are you kidding me?

This world has gone mad tbh. I agree with Saachi 100%.

Lupi wrote:

jibers wrote:

Lupi wrote:

""Italian football is now without dignity or pride because it makes too many foreigners playing also in the youth teams,"
then he goes on detail that 4>3>2>1. He saw more black players that's why he said there are many black players. Racism? are you kidding me?

This world has gone mad tbh. I agree with Saachi 100%.

"If I haven’t been able to explain myself in 42 years, then I’ll have to spend another 20 hoping they understand what I’m like."

jibers wrote:

farfan wrote:you agree 100 % that italian born & raised players who are black should be excluded from Italy's national team / youth systems ?

Let me ask you this, do you think Italians who are Italian by heritage (born there and family have been Italians for generations) would be happy if they fielded an xi of black players?

If they aren't happy with it does that make them racist?