Olivier Dacourt’s strong statement on the Maignan case

This is an incident that should no longer take place in stadiums. After the racist insults received by Mike Maignan against Udinese, former player Olivier Dacourt, who played six seasons in Italy and co-author of the documentary “I am not a monkey” published in January 2019, expresses his dismay at to the situation. “We are almost five years later (the documentary). What happened ? Nothing. It doesn’t matter whether we talk about it, whether we condemn it… So we’re going to talk about it for a few days, for forty-eight or seventy-two hours, say that racism is terrible, and then it will go down again. We will find ourselves in six months at the next incident, saying the same thing again. It feels like Dalida’s song: words and words and words… Except that I don’t have any words today”he said during an interview with the newspaper The Parisian. He also denounced racism in Italy in general.

“In Italy, the context is particular. The political party in power is far-right, with all the ideas that go with it. This is not very surprising. Italian fans can no longer be afraid since the sanctions are not likely to fall. They can go to the stadium and do anything because in any case, what they think is also what the woman at the head of the country thinks.pointed the finger at Dacourt, before mentioning this same scourge in France. “It’s the same problem everywhere. In France, we like to point the finger and look elsewhere. In certain stadiums, we hear the same shouts, the same chants. Racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism… It’s the same fight. Just see the Nazi salutes in the stands in Lyon. To see our French players react and condemn is already positive. Not expressing yourself or opposing is taking part in it. But that is not enough. To condemn is good, to sanction is better.” Thus, Olivier Dacourt is calling for strong sanctions, like what England did. “The example to take is England and their zero tolerance. There are very long stadium bans, lasting around ten years. It calmed down all the supporters and kicked out those we didn’t want to see in a stadium.”, he added. Worried, the former AS Roma or Inter Milan player wonders “what stage are we going to leave to our children”.