Oh, Mario. Why always ... well, you know the rest. In the cold light of day there was something oddly unsurprising about the news Mario Balotelli had stumbled his way into not one race storm, but two race storms for the price of one misguided Instagram message. Let’s face it, if you had to pick out a black, Jew-friendly footballer capable of offending at a single stroke black people and Jews there is only one real candidate for the role.
Similarly, how many professional footballers could manage to publish what is in isolation the most xenophobic thing any player has ever willingly communicated to the public; and yet still leave you convinced he’s clearly not a racist, has no ill intent, and really did think he was just sharing an excellent joke.
From a certain angle this is, let’s face it, all quite silly. A man who is not a racist accidentally pressed the racist button. He then apologised. As a result he is currently under “investigation” – oh, the details, the po-faced literal-mindedness of that investigation – by the Football Association. If there is any consistency to the FA’s scheme of punishments Balotelli could even end up being fined and banned for republishing an internet joke containing a pair of prima facie racist stereotypes.
The FA are bound by to investigate these incidents. First, by the wider responsibilities to those who play and watch the sport. Second, by David Whelan’s very similar – but unretracted - comments about Jewish people, which are currently also being “investigated”. And third, simply because in many people’s minds this has become a predictably muddled and tribal issue in recent years.
If John Terry’s ban for using racist language during a Premier League match in 2011 is taken as a strict liability precedent, Balotelli could be in trouble. The argument on this side is fairly simple. Mario didn’t mean to cause offence. He isn’t saying black men all jump high or Jews all chase coins. Indeed, Balotelli is too intelligent and too childishly disordered ever to pass himself off successfully as a racist, which demands the malevolent, illogical, defiantly unimaginative system of thought that is likely to be beyond his reach.
The fact remains that just by publishing these words Balotelli is in breach of FA rules, not to mention helping to propagate stereotypes that cause genuine pain somewhere down the line. Racist abuse is an everyday issue, not to mention a worryingly common feature of bullying in schools. Putting this kind of idea out there, whatever the intention, further normalises it. Chasing coins like a Jew is now to be chortled over, taken on and parroted by those with only the vaguest idea of irony, sarcasm and – God help us – “reclaiming the meme”.
The Terry case tells us that intent is irrelevant yet for once there is a convincing case that Balotelli’s intent should be the primary consideration, and that to formalise an act of naivety as an offence of racism would be entirely counterproductive. With this in mind it is necessary at this point to unravel the strands of clumsily layered meaning. The original message re-posted by Balotelli mentioned the mixed ethnic background of Mario from Super Mario, then subverted this into a banterous joke with a provocative addendum about Jews and blacks. Balotelli, who is black, has a Jewish foster mother and is called Mario, couldn’t resist the urge to send this on, assuming anyone who got it would conclude that coming from him it became a spot of fun, a self-referential joke or even – as he seems to believe – a spiking of the racists’ guns.
The problem is that those entering unforewarned at this stage simply see a famous Premier League player, staple of children’s football magazines, sending a message about blacks and Jews. Cue unintended consequences and a supra-Mario labyrinth of moral responsibility. Not to mention, rising above this with a weary sense of inevitability, yet another moment of managed idiocy in a sport that has always tolerated and indeed promoted the arrested development of its main protagonists.
On BBC Radio 4 this morning Alan Kennedy called for clubs to police and vet all social media posts, a solution that is unenforceable and off the point. As ever education is the answer. This incident should be a source of shame for football. Not because a star player has posted a misguided internet joke. But because such unworldly naivety can continue to exist in a sportsman who has, since the age of 11, been “educated” within the professional system and yet still doesn’t realise straight away – as most averagely well-informed 15-year-olds would – that sending something like this on is likely to cause a problem.
Yet Balotelli remains in many ways a special case. Not just for his obvious immaturity, but as a Ghanian-Italian who, many would say, has a right to speak from the heart on topics of race and racism. He is an irreverent, sharp-witted, at times slightly aimless young man. Censorious solemnity, the correct default setting on these issues, doesn’t come naturally to him. No doubt this joke made Balotelli laugh because it takes the kind of words he has heard all his life and twists them into another shape. Here is a man who has suffered racism laughing at, alongside and around it. Sometimes perhaps you do just have to be allowed to crack a smile.
Who knows, handled correctly this could even be a spur for incidents such as these to be addressed outside the usual reflex cycle of offence taken and punishment doled out. By any sensible measure punishing Balotelli would be perverse and draconian.
It is worth remembering who we’re dealing with there. For all his well-galleried roll of antics the Premier League’s favourite Italian-Ghanaian semi-Jewish striker remains a flighty, infantilised, quietly inspirational footballer. Balotelli suffered at times growing up in Lombardy, but survived and made a career in the game. With a lenient hand from the FA it seems likely that English football can also survive perhaps the least convincing race storm of a bruised and troubled recent past.
