Yokohama Marinos apologize for banana-waving fan incident

And in one fell swoop the Japanese teach the Europeans, UEFA, and FIFA a lesson in how to swiftly act upon racism in football with no pussyfooting punitive fines. Are you listening UEFA?

Did I miss something? How is a banana racist?

igloobuyer: Did I miss something? How is a banana racist?

By implying that the Brazilian player on the opposing Japanese team is a monkey. Joeintokyo's link has photos of the player.

Big overreaction. Becoming too much like America, sadly.

Helluva lot more class and rapid action to address this issue than the way Europeans sweep blatant racism in football (soccer) under the rug.

hashtag WeAreAllMonkeys

http://metro.co.uk/2014/04/29/why-the-social-media-banana-campaign-is-unintentionally-very-cleverly-helping-the-fight-against-racism-4712781/

I find it a very sad statement of personal insecurity that people take the quick action of the Marinos as some sort of personal praise or praise of the nation and go out of their way, instead of addressing the actions of the 'fan', to make juvenile insults towards Europe (in this case). Same with the untested Ebola vaccine: some literally did not comment on the vaccine or how it might help, but talked about asked "What is communist China doing?" or, "Crickets from the ROK", etc.

While it's great that the Marinos are taking swift action, they are doing so in part because of the fallout of the Urawa's very SLOW reaction and their allowing it to go unchecked until it became obvious the complaints were piling up (they left the sign on the gate for quite some time!). What's more, comparing the swift action of this one team to all of Europe is ridiculous. It's much like comparing the talent of teams in Asia to that of Europe or South America -- it's been going on there a lot longer, on a much larger scale, and cannot be stopped as easily. I don't condone ANY racist action whatsoever by any of these teams, but the fact of the matter is that even in rival games in the same nation the taunting and jeering has been part of the sport since ages ago, and cannot be as easily stamped out, whereas here, where the sport is still not even that old by comparison, and not as ingrained, it's a lot easier to nip it at the bud (and good when they can).

Hope this kid realizes the err of his ways -- though I doubt he will -- and hope he never gets back in on another Marinos game... ever.

turbotsatAUG. 26, 2014 - 12:26AM JST igloobuyer: Did I miss something? How is a banana racist? By implying that the Brazilian player on the opposing Japanese team is a monkey. Joeintokyo's link has photos of the player.

Is that some kind of 'reverse-racism' or something? I have only heard of racist comments about Japanese looking like monkeys (starting in WWII), but Brazilians?

I did not know banana-waving constituted insult. In Japanese language, word "banana" does not have a bad meaning.

Yokohama Marinos have not existed since they merged with Yokohama Flügels in 1999.

The article should be about Yokohama F. Marinos. No excuse for incorrectly naming the club in a news article.

If a person gets so passionate about a sport that they find themselves demeaning their teams opponents in some way it is safe to say that they have lost perspective on things. A lot of people get caught up in the moment and act in ways that they normally would not. Hopefully that's all this one isolated fans actions represent. It's almost scary how easily people can get worked up while part of a large crowd like at a sporting event.