Antisemitic Chelsea

[The Moos]

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/25846/ch...d-muslim-leader

Chelsea chants denounced by Muslim leaderBy Martin Bright, January 7, 2010

A leading Muslim politician campaigning against antisemitic chanting at Chelsea Football Club has been told that fans who shout “We hate y*ds!†about Tottenham fans are not expressing hatred of Jews.

Chelsea has rejected the proposal of the Labour London Assembly member, Murad Qureshi, that the club should introduce an anti-racism programme for fans and stewards to show it is taking the problem seriously

Mr Qureshi wrote to Ron Gourlay, Chelsea’s chief executive, in November, after attending a match as part of a delegation organised by the campaign group Show Racism the Red Card.

“I was dismayed to hear clear antisemitic chanting from Chelsea supporters in the Matthew Harding stand,†he said. He reported that a Chelsea season-ticket holder told him this was a regular occurrence at the club’s west London stadium, Stamford Bridge.

Edward Ashwell, Chelsea’s head of security, replied: “The problem of antisemitic chanting at Stamford Bridge is not as clear cut as it might be. Tottenham Hotspur supporters call themselves ‘the y*ds’ and when some Chelsea supporters chant ‘We hate y*ds’ they do not mean ‘We hate Jewish people’, they actually mean ‘We hate Tottenham supporters’ much in the same way as they chant ‘We hate Leeds’ .â€

Mr Ashwell emphasised that the club did not condone this behaviour. He added: “It is not easy to deal with when a large number of people are taking part, but we try to identify the ringleaders and eject and/or arrest them as an example.â€

An astonished Mr Qureshi wrote back to the club, this time copying in Chelsea’s Jewish owner Roman Abramovich, to say that he did not accept the club’s explanation.

He said the club failed to recognise the explicitly antisemitic nature of chants at the club. “One chant starts: ‘he’s only a poor little y*ddo’ and continues by saying that ‘he goes to the bar to buy a drink and only buys one for himself’. Another involves the line ‘running round Tottenham with his foreskin hanging out’â€.

Last month Mr Gourlay, on behalf of Mr Abramovich, responded to Mr Qureshi’s concerns, confirming that the club vigorously opposed racist chanting.

Mr Qureshi told the JC he was disappointed by Chelsea’s response. “They need to take this far more seriously. Chelsea fans themselves know this is a problem. We mustn’t forget older forms of racism when dealing with new ones such as Islamophobia.â€

Chelsea’s official spokesman Simon Taylor, who said Mr Ashwell did not speak for the club, said: “We have been focusing our efforts to make it clear to our fans that chanting of this nature is discriminatory, offensive and totally unacceptable. Chelsea has a zero tolerance policy towards such behaviour.â€

Well there you have it. We are racist b*stards.

 

[Tim]

Wow. Just wow. The guy really doesn't get it does he. Nice that it implies that we are the only club who 'abuse' Sp*ds fans in this way, when that couldn't be further from the truth.

 

[Mod]

Yea typical they single Chelsea out for it.

So now it's a case of you can only sing certain songs, what a police state! Tottenham fans must be pissing themselves.

 

[Phillip]

On its face, those chants are pretty bad, but you have to take it in context as being in a football match, and that no racism is intended in thost chants. Not much you can say to someone who does not understand the history, so Mr. Quereshi will not be appeased, I suppose.

 

[Epic]

Club should be more careful who they invite to games. This delegation should have at least been briefed about specific chants before they made up their own conclusions.

 

[BLUENUT]

On its face, those chants are pretty bad, but you have to take it in context as being in a football match, and that no racism is intended in thost chants. Not much you can say to someone who does not understand the history, so Mr. Quereshi will not be appeased, I suppose.

Perhaps they should ban/fine their own fans for singing y** army!

 

[BlueBeard]

As is mentioned in that article, and as I've explained in this forum before, the Tottenham fans call themselves "The y*ds" or "The y*d Army".

Surely it's clear that for the most part the chants are aimed at Spurs fans rather than at Jews. If, for some ridiculous reason that is seen as anti-semetic, then surely any non-Jewish Spurs fans calling themselves members of "The y*d Army" must be equally guilty? I freely admit that back in the 60's & 70's there was an anti-semetic edge to the chants, but not nowadays, at least not by the vast majority.

And why just pick on Chelsea? Arsenal fans sing exactly the same things as us, probably even more so. West Ham & Millwall fans are on a par with Chelsea for these chants, and the fans of plenty of non-London teams sing similar things when playing against the scum from N17. People who complain about this kind of thing cause even more bad feeling, rather than helping the so-called 'situation'.

As Lofty would say, F*ck 'em all!!!!

 

[sleepy_gonzalez]

i think this guy's missed the point a bit...

but it's also fair comment, yes the whole y*d thing is not necessarily racist, but you hear some nasty stuff. my jewish mate stopped going to the bridge cos his family were so fed up of all the sh*t that gets chanted, and they understand the y*d thing. they just don't like holocaust references. fans that hiss like a gas chamber.. er.. racist!

 

[TheWestwayWonder]

Where the hell was Mr. Murad Qureshi when Ken Bates was complaining about how Roman and other "shiesters" upended him at Chelsea with all their money.

 

[PloKoon13]

‘he goes to the bar to buy a drink and only buys one for himself’.

And there was me thinking this chant was about G4...

 

[Barn]

I wish these people would just leave us football fans alone, but there are some very well respected people on this site that will not accept that it's okay to chant or speak those sorts of things because they cause racist offence.

Personally I think its about tottenham and so it's not racist (I have no ill feeling towards jewish people), but people do take offence. People bloody well take offence at anything these days!

 

[geezer]

People bloody well take offence at anything these days!

I take offence at that

 

[loz]

It is always going to be a contentious debate and one where there is probably never going to be a 'sensible middle gorund'

If you are a Jewish Chelsea fan then it is unlikely you are going to feel comfortable hearing songs referring in a derogatory way to y*ds and just think it is a bit of fun because some Tottenham fans call themselves the y*d army.

However, lets for a moment, say that you are Jewish and you do see songs about not having a foreskin as nothing more than a bit of harmless fun. Once that song moves on and you listen to people imitating gas chambers then the comedy has entirely disappeared.

I guess I am one of the people you are referring to Barn because I would prefer it if we steered well clear of singing these songs. Whether the intention is to be racist or not is, for me, not the only issue. Justifying it by saying that some Spurs fans call themselves the y*d Army is, for me, not an adequate justification because when these songs are sung they are not just heard by those people in the Spus camp who do that. They are also heard by Spurs fans who don't do that, Jewish and non Jewish, and they are also heard by Jewish people who have no interest in Tottenham and all they hear are songs that make the term 'y*d' or being 'y*ddish' sound like a bad thing - for people who don't associate that with a football rivalry they have only one other thing to associate it with and that thing is repulsive.

 

[Randy36]

Do these "fans" not realise it was a Jewish chap who took our club out of the doldrums!

 

[PloKoon13]

Do these "fans" not realise it was a Jewish chap who took our club out of the doldrums!

And another one who took us to the Champions League Final.

And another who was a complete farce in defence and was a large part of a feud which saw the best manager in our history leave the club. Wait... scratch that...

 

[Alakuu]

We had Ben Sahar too before we sold him on to Espanyol in the summer

 

[mad_mac]

Another nail in the coffin that was our atmosphere

 

[SydneyChelsea]

I met a Jewish girl at a party once...my experience with her made me very very pro-Semitic.

 

[lauren]

as a Chelsea and football fan who is also Jewish I will say that I did enjoy sitting with the away fans at 3 Point Lane when they started singing the y*d songs because I certainly felt uncomfortable and am obviously not going to sing along with it. However, I never felt that it was racist, I think half the nitwits who sing those songs are not really aware of what they were singing about. I think the Munich songs directed at the Manks have no place and I wouldn't join in on those either.

They are tasteless songs but I don't suppose anyone is going to stop them from being sung.