The scene itself lasted only two seconds. However, days later, made in Mexico, still talking. Before kick-off Cup game, Cruz Azul against Toluca had knelt referee Adalid Maganda on the lawn in reverence to the “Black Lives Matter”movement. Numerous Mexican Newspapers and sport leaves are reported to gesture about Magandas Anti-racism. The 36-Year-old is the only colored referee in Mexico’s highest class, and always the object of the hostility of a racist.
“The gesture of Adalid can help to raise the awareness of our Mexican brothers and to move both the Manager as well as players and Fans of an analysis of racism in Sport,” said Wilner Metelus, President of the citizens ‘ Committee for the defense of naturalized and afro-Mexican citizens. He called on the Mexican football Federation FMF, to respect Magandas action and support.
at the same time defendant Metelus, that there are coloured players in Mexico, unlike, for example, in England or Germany, not a public character after the violent death of the African-American George Floyd in the United States by a police officer. “In the Mexican League there are a lot of African-born brothers, who have been the victims of racism, by being yelled at or with monkey noises considered,” said Metelus. The players in Europe or the United States were in solidarity. “In Mexico there is a lack of education to discrimination and participation of the Manager in order to promote a campaign against racism is appropriate.” To the Mexican football Federation FMF addressed in the F. A. Z. a comment to Magandas gesture and programmes against racism in Mexico’s stadiums remained unanswered. To set up an Interview at Maganda, in turn, the FMF refused with reference to the Fifa regulations.
“In my own country, I feel like a foreigner”
Maganda, derived from the südmexikanischen the state of Guerrero, began his referee career, as a 17-Year-old. He ran through all the game classes in Mexico. Stoically he endured the racist failures and hostility. “In the third League I went in the stadiums and they shouted at me:’ son of a Negro, warned him right!'”, he told interview in a newspaper. In the year 2015 – he was at the time, had just been promoted in the first League – reviewed Maganda before the game between Atlante and Pachuca in the clothing of the players. In the Pachuca-changing the player made “some very strange noises, as if they were chimpanzees. You have insulted me. I thought, in the professional area, it would be different than in the Amateurs.“
