Every fucking year with this bullshit

I knew it was going to happen because it happens every year. I even talked to our good friend Danny Penza about it on a podcast. Still, though, I held out hope that this year, finally, would be the year I didn’t have to write about racist Fiorentina fans. And, as has been the case every year, my hope was no match for my foreknowledge.

I don’t know what else to write at this point. VN’s editorial stance on this bullshit has been pretty clear for a long time now, and we reiterate annually because we have to. Over and over again. Looking at this list makes me sick, and knowing that it’ll keep growing makes me sicker.

It’s easy to ignore this kind of vileness and just focus on the game. I’m tempted to sometimes. “Just ignore it,” I tell myself, “Just don’t give it any thought. Devoting even a single neuron to these scumbags and their scumbag actions just gives them the attention and the power they so desperately crave, and I’m not going to give them anything.”

But we all know what ignoring them does, don’t we? Ignoring the racists only emboldens them. Ignoring them means they get away with it. Ignoring them means that they’re going to do something even worse next time, like the world’s most evil children pushing the boundaries to see just how far they can go before someone slaps them back into place.

Instead, we need to actively condemn this type of behavior every time we see it, whether it’s among Viola fans or anywhere else. Otherwise, it soaks into us, stains us, polluting the group which we choose to be a part of, which of course means polluting ourselves by proxy.

Full credit to Vlahović, who handled this about as well as he could have. When Viola fans do shit like this, I can’t even be upset that Fiorentina lost. Anything that makes these assholes angry is something that I like, and having Dušan look back at them and say, “Scoreboard,” fits the bill. It’s like seeing a growth on your arm and cutting it off with a butter knife. It hurts like crazy but it’s also for the best. Don’t actually do that. I’m not a doctor. I’m just too worked up to write a decent analogy.

While this is far from being just a Fiorentina problem—Juventus banned 171 fans a few months ago for racism, and it’s still going strong elsewhere too—this is a Fiorentina blog, so we’re focusing on the Fiorentina portion. Because there’s plenty to focus on. There’s still plenty of racism in this fan base, to say nothing of sexism and just indescribably awful behavior. And if you want to downplay any of this reprehensible behavior, you can fuck right off this website.

I’m tired of this shit. It’s the same thing again and again and I don’t want to write about it anymore. I don’t have anything new to say about it. All I can do is ensure that my fury overwhelms my exhaustion, and hope the same happens for everyone else. Because imagining a Fiorentina without racist fans is an oasis in a desert world full of violence and hatred, even if it shimmers back into mirage and then haze every time I open my eyes. I’m never going to see it happen, but maybe someone somewhere down the line will, and all this anger will mean something.