In a historic fight back, player Dani Alves’s sense of humour proves to be the only remedy to racism at least on the pitch. The incident occurred on the match of 27/04/2014 between Barcelona and Villarreal when a Villarreal fan threw a banana at Dani Alves as he was to play a corner kick to distract him. Instead, Dani bends over, picks the banana, eats it and carried on with his game.
The humour he brought to the entire racist jibe has prompted a global and high profile support and solidarity against racism on the pitch. Fellow players, fans , coaches, managers and people all over the world are now on a banana eating campaign and banana selfie campaign against racism.
In a similar fashion, it has emerged today that Donald Sterling of LA Clippers has been banned for life and fined millions of dollars for his alleged racist comments which suggests , he doesn’t want to see Blacks come to his games.
Could sports be the final medium to pull straw against racism. Hopefully this will be the final goodbye to racism on our pitches and institutions.