Charlie Smith
AN Andalucian football club has taken a stand against racism by printing racist slurs on the back of their shirts.
Alma de Africa – soul of Africa – are a team of five Spaniards and immigrants from 12 other nationalities based in Jerez.
The multiracial set of players donned jerseys adorned with the racist insults for their last match of the season against Algaida.
Shirts included the terms: “Monkey, nigger, slave, ape, sudaca (derogatory name for a South American), undocumented migrant, gorilla, gypsy, Indian, illegal, blackie, scum, immigrant and black.”
Teammates have, in a tongue-in-cheek way, branded the five-year-old squad ‘the foreigners’.
“We still hear these insults and it hurts us, as well as the professional players,” Cameroon-born midfielder Eric Josue Amang told El Pais.
“We want to be respected. We are in the 21st century and I don’t understand how they can still say these insults.”
Eric journeyed from his country to Morocco, and then crossed to Spain in a small boat for €80, in what he called an ‘incredibly hard experience’.
Alma de Africa finished the campaign bottom of the table and gave away the shirts to the Algaida players.
