Football South Australia disciplinary committee must be overhauled, says mother of child racially abused
A teenager has been banned for 12 games after racially abusing an opponent in a junior soccer match – with the victim also copping a suspension for his response to the slur.
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A junior soccer player has been handed a 12-match suspension for a racial slur during a match while the victim – who stood up for himself in response – has received a two-game ban.
The mother of the boy abused has called for Football South Australia’s disciplinary committee to be overhauled in the wake of the incident.
Nalika Subasinghe said her 16-year-old son was called a “f**ing curry” by an opponent while playing for his southern suburbs soccer club on August 28.
Her son responded by saying the offending player, from a northern suburbs club, was “f**ing racist”.
Both players were suspended following a Football SA disciplinary hearing on September 9.
Half of the victim’s penalty was for making a “threatening remark”, before he was racially abused, while responding to opposition threats to injure his team’s goalkeeper.
Both Mrs Subasinghe and Football SA declined to name the two clubs involved as the matter involved junior players.
Mrs Subasinghe said she was disappointed her son was told by one of the panel members at the hearing the only way to respond to racial abuse was with “silence”.
She said the FSA’s disciplinary committee needed some fresh blood, with two men aged in their 50s hearing her son’s case.
“Somebody who played soccer possibly 20 to 30 years ago cannot relate to a young Asian boy and tell him how to react to racial abuse,” Mrs Subasinghe said.
“There is no relatability.”
She said the panel needed to have at least five members of diverse backgrounds, including a female, spanning experience in mental health and multiculturalism.
“Why don’t you have somebody who can handle or relate to teenagers of many cultural backgrounds?”
Mrs Subasinghe also told The Messenger some opposition players made monkey noises while her son sat on the bench during the August 28 match.
“It was the straw that broke the camel’s back, he’d had enough,” she said of her son’s response to racial abuse.
She also believed the committee had gone too far by banning the other boy for 12 weeks and said the perpetrator needed education, not a severe suspension.
However, Football SA general manager of football operations, Wendy Carter, said its committee consisted of a range of professional people, including lawyers, police officers and former match officials, from a mix of genders.
“When the disciplinary committee handed down the penalty the player asked how he was to respond if he is racially vilified,” Mrs Carter said.
“The (committee) responded that a player should not react directly to the person, but to report it immediately to the officials.
“One (committee) member was empathetic to the player by relating his own experiences of racial vilification as a young person of European origin.
“Unfortunately when he relayed his experiences the mother indicated that racism towards a European was not the same as racism towards an Asian person, which was surprising that someone felt that there was a higher form of racism.”
Mrs Carter also said having five panel members on the committee would not be practical.
She said many committee members had either experience working with young children or teenage children of their own.
She said Football SA called for expressions of interest at the end of each year for suitably qualified people to sit on the committee, including from diverse backgrounds.