The Atleti Situation: Racism and Death threats by "fans"

[templargirl.livejournal.com]

This is not a post to bash the club or its values, it's a post to show a situation that has many of us fans of other teams tired of in la Liga.



I'm 26 years old and been a fan of Athletic Club since I was born, I have gone to practically all the stadiums in Spain (except Getafe and Tenerife), most of the fans are quite passionate but you can have fun with them, there isn't much bad blood, of course there are matches and matches, RM and BCN tease and pull each other's chain a LOT but at the end of the day things are fine, you didn't see Barcelona rioting for not winning the CL last year or Madrid rioting for lack of titles in a couple of years.

There are several famous rivalries in Spain besides RM and BCN: Espanyol and Barcelona, Atlético and Real Madrid and of course the Basque Derbi: Real Sociedad vs Athletic Club.

I think I'm used to see rival fans sitting together and having a beer while waiting for the match, I've gone to Anoeta decked head to toe in Athletic gear and no one has bashed or insulted me for it.







That's how we roll in Euskadi, you can sit with rivals without any single problem happening.

I've also gone to the two biggest Madrid stadiums: Santiago Bernabeu and Vicente Calderón, the first one is not exactly very friendly but you can work it out there, the Atleti stadium is simply unbearable.

They are known as the worst fanbase in Spain hands down, they scream bad things at players, are racists, kick fans in the stands, throw stuff at the field...

This is what they do to rival players:

One of our captains, Gurpegui, gets called: "eres un yonki" (drug addict) or "pásame un gramo" (pass me a gram of drug) at the Vicente Calderón stadium ¬¬

they also sing: "vascos vascos, hemos venido a fusilaros" (basques, we've come to execute (kill) you")

"Gurpegui muerete" "Die Gurpegui die"

They have black/latinamerican players in their club but still chant this kind of shit to rival players:

"Mourinho son of a bitch" "Mourinho die" "That Portuguese is suck a motherfucker" "Marcelo you are a Monkey" "Die Pepe Die"

The Atletic gang throwing Flares to Sevilla fans.

You can find tons and tons of related issues about this fanatism, the LFP does nothing, the Spanish Football Federation does nothing, UEFA does nothing, the referees look the other way...

It's really tiresome and annoying that this situation is still allowed to happen in our stadiums, I hope something can be done but I don't count on it ¬¬

Comments

[ayres-4.livejournal.com]

It's so interesting to me that the fans of a particular club are specifically racist/aggresive/etc. I guess I've always seen it here, where it's like that no matter what club you're from.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_almagitana/]

there are a lot more fans that behave like this in Spain, it's not exclusive to atleti AT ALL.

[ayres-4.livejournal.com]

I was trying to think if there was anything exclusive about a club here, I've heard that All Boys' fans have antisemitic chants because their classic is Atlanta (usually Atlanta's fans are jewish). Ugh.

[verses.livejournal.com]

Well, there's some of it everywhere, but usually not filling an entire stadium

[ayres-4.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I meant, it's really strange that a whole fanbase is associated with it.

[piratesswoop.livejournal.com]

Yeah, mte. I'm pretty sure a lot of club ultras do things like this, but I rarely hear it around entire stadiums the way I do when I'm watching my teams play Atleti.

[templargirl.livejournal.com]

This.

[wall-upper.livejournal.com]

OT i'm sorry, but what is Ramón Díaz like as a manager? there are rumors that he is going to replace Perez at Libertad, not sure what to expect!

[ayres-4.livejournal.com]

Errrrrrrrr, I don't know how to answer this. He was very good at River. Very very good. The first time he was at SL we won a title... Sadly he left in the midst of a lot of trouble with the players. That's the worst part: he seems to have become pretty conflictive. He even brought his kids to play in SL, and that triggered a lot of problems in the group. In fact, at 4 am before the match against Liga de Quito in 2008 for the Libertadores, Ramón Diaz went to the teams's "leaders'" rooms to confront them over the way they would divide the prize IF they won the Cup. *facepalm* We were eliminated, and he left shortly after that.
For the second time around, it was worse. He got rid of our captain and I'm still angry at him for some of the players he asked for and some of the ones he sent out on a loan because he didn't want them. I'm glad he's gone, tbh.
ps: I've heard he was terrible in Mexico as well, but I can't tell for sure.

[wall-upper.livejournal.com]

ooooh dear, thats a little worrying :/ ugh Libertad aren't a rich club, the only reason they are as successful as they are is because they are very good at buying/selling players, and hanging onto the key members of the team... so yeah, this looks kind of grim :/ I heard he was good back in the day with River, didn't know much about his recent antics though. this sounds like it could be a bit of a disaster, i'm starting to hope we find someone else...

[ayres-4.livejournal.com]

He seems to like getting rid of the key members that confront him in some way. Don't get me wrong, I hated Rivero and I wanted him gone, but the way he left because of Ramón Diaz forced us to loan him to Boca, when it's never, ever a good idea to give a player to a direct rival like that.
The last tournament was the worse, everyone said so, he set up this really disgustingly defensive team, ugh... Not to mention that he tried playing a kid, Palomino, as a left back defender when he's a central defender.. I'm not even kidding, we were playing Racing at our stadium, I was sitting there and the guy behind me spent the whole first half going: "Ramón, Paloma isn't a left back defender, Ramón, Paloma isn't a left back defender..." And both of Racing's goals came from Palomino's side.