The virulent reactions to the decision of three Real Madrid players not to support the Todos somos caballas campaign like the rest of their team reveal the extent to which the tension over the crisis in Ceuta continues to permeate polarized Spanish society. And something more: the uninhibited nature of some intolerant discourses that also reach some football stars.
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When shortly before half past nine on Tuesday night, in the tunnel of the Martínez Valero stadium in Elche, some of their footballers were still debating whether they should wear it, what was being decided was how a gesture that might seem trivial would be interpreted, but which they knew committed them. This had already been confirmed by Ez Abde, the Moroccan player of Betis, so criticized in his country for wearing it. And this is how Mbappé, Vinicius, and Konaté experienced it later, who, in a respectable and respectful exercise of individual freedom, showed their discomfort on the pitch and collected their shirts leaving only part of the slogan visible. The criticism against the three footballers, who perhaps did not fully measure the impact of the gesture, forced Mbappé to explain his reasons: “I also wanted to have a gesture with the immigrants.”
A large part of society grants enormous influence to elite footballers and, in rare cases, this projection leads them to take public positions. The French Kylian Mbappé, raised in a family of Cameroonian and Algerian origin in a multicultural banlieue of Paris, has exercised this responsibility throughout his career by encouraging young people to vote or taking a stand against the far right. It is not surprising that a deputy from the National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s party, commented on the shirt episode in Elche with these words: “If shame had a face, it would be that of Kylian Mbappé.” And this is not surprising, precisely because the forward’s stance has been valuable, and his explanations have gone beyond a simplistic and partisan interpretation of the crisis.
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Mbappé has focused on those who should be the priority: the victims — “all the victims,” he said — and this includes the immigrants who lost their lives crossing the border and the thousands who live in precarious conditions in the autonomous city. And also the people of Ceuta, whose legitimate discomfort has been dragging on for a month and a half without prospects for a quick solution, and with the widespread feeling that the authorities have failed them. In this discomfort and fear, the far right is embedding itself, throwing salt on a fresh wound to fuel distrust. Sport is often a social seismograph and this is now the danger: that in the discourse of just and urgent solidarity with Ceuta, the seed of hatred and division is sown.
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