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"You're a f*cking gypsy" = 5 match ban

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Ryan

Ryan

The Prophet
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Dean Bouzanis, one of the 12 trillion "next gen" goalkeepers we had one our books at one stage, has been given a 5 match ban for calling Besart Berisha - Melbourne Victory's antagonistic, high-scoring Albanian striker - "a fucking gypsy".

I can't be the only person who thinks this is completely fucking mental, can I?



Dean Bouzanis given five-match A-League ban for Besart Berisha 'gypsy' slur in Melbourne Derby

Posted about an hour ago
PHOTO: Dean Bouzanis saves a goal as Besart Berisha looks on during Saturday night's Melbourne Derby. (AAP: Joe Castro)
MAP: Melbourne 3000
Remorseful Melbourne City goalkeeper Dean Bouzanis has been told he should count himself fortunate he will only miss five A-League matches for repeatedly calling Melbourne Victory's Albanian striker Besart Berisha a "f***ing gypsy".
Bouzanis was unable to persuade Football Federation Australia's disciplinary and ethics committee to downgrade his charge of discriminatory language on the grounds he did not understand the racial undertones of his slur in Saturday night's Melbourne Derby.
But at a hearing on Wednesday night in Sydney, the committee accepted the 26-year-old's deep remorse over his words, caught on camera following Manny Muscat's controversial 86th-minute own goal that gave Victory a 2-1 win.
It also took into account the fact he had met with Berisha personally on Tuesday to apologise, and praised City for making a public apology on the player's behalf and taking immediate proactive steps to address the situation with Victory.
But committee chair, John Marshall SC, warned Bouzanis that while his unblemished record and pledge to undergo an awareness course had helped his case this time, he could not expect such leniency in the future.
"You should think yourself fortunate to have got the minimum in the circumstances, and you can never count on that happening ever again," Marshall said.
Bouzanis will be sidelined until City's round 24 away clash with Western Sydney Wanderers and likely replaced by Thomas Sorensen in the interim.
"I'm grateful to have been able to present my case and I'd like to apologise to Berisha and the football community," Bouzanis said afterwards.
"You'll see from my actions that this will never happen again."
During the 40-minute hearing, City chief executive Scott Munn recounted the moment he found Bouzanis in the changing rooms after Saturday's fiery match and explained the severity of what he had said.
Munn said Bouzanis had been under the impression the word "gypsy" was nothing more than a swear word or something akin to "bogan".
But he became extremely anxious and regretful after learning its true meaning and sought to apologise to Berisha immediately, which Victory deemed inappropriate on the night.
Bouzanis' absence further ravages City's already massively depleted squad for Saturday's crunch clash with Brisbane at AAMI Park.
Tim Cahill has a one-match ban for swearing, while defender Michael Jakobsen is injured and captain Bruno Fornaroli, Muscat, Osama Malik, Luke Brattan and Fernando Brandan will all serve one-week suspensions due to an accumulation of yellow cards.
 
What the hell.... "fuckin gypsy" probably warrant at least Five match ban in a league were Tim Cahill obviously serves a one match ban for swearing! :)
 
I dont think it is a race. More a word describing different groups of people know for drifting around. They are some how related to each other but not sure how.
 
Where is the unashamed $380,000 fine to go with it? This amateur hour FA won't get very far in the world if they keep missing these opportunities cash in.
 
Well, different words have different contexts in different countries. So if calling someone a gypsy in Aus is considered racist abuse, well then, the bloke deserves a ban.

Saying that, I agree with Rosco above.
 
Rosco said:
The Roma are. But this guy is Albanian so probably not of the Roma ethnicity.

But Ryan is right, it is fucking mental that someone in Australia is getting a ban for racial abuse.
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I blame the Albanian. If he wasn't in the country in the first place none of this would have happened.....
 
Was it a crass thing to say? Yes. Should it be made a formal offence warranting a five-match ban? Absolutely not. That smacks of Orwell's Thought Police and, once you start down that road, you'll never know where it's going to stop.
 
Judge Jules said:
Was it a crass thing to say? Yes. Should it be made a formal offence warranting a five-match ban? Absolutely not. That smacks of Orwell's Thought Police and, once you start down that road, you'll never know where it's going to stop.
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I do respect Your ability to judge to better than mine, given Your the judge... But where is this leading us then. The Roma People (Gypsies) are a minority, hounded by the majority for decades and centuries. They have not made their own situation any easier themselves. There is hardly any of their kids finish secondary School, they are rootless they way they drfit around, and they are normally looked Down upon by the people in the land they are in at any given time. So when branding this guy a fucking Gypsy (even if he probably is not a gypsy in the first Place) is a strong insult. You don't get of easy if you abuse a sami people (Nort Scandinavian minority) a fucking "Lapp" in a football game. Neither I Guess they would get of easy calling him a fucking aboriginie if he was an aussie minority.

I cant say much about the five match ban ruling as I have no reference to what is a lengthy ban and not. Compared to the guy in the same article serving one match ban for swearing, such a direct insulting outburst warrants a much tougher ban than that?
 
Agree

In my adopted country being anti-traveller is a "socially acceptable" form of racism, that I find really hard to stomach and have often ended up in major arguments over. The irony being that the language and discrimination used is extremely similar to that used in England about the Irish themselves some 50 years ago
 
It's a slur based on an societal group

Kind of is a bit bad like.

Either all prejudice and slurs are allowed or none are

Personally I don't mind being called a fat honky twat
 
Guys, I hate prejudice as much as you do. The Nazis turned close relatives of mine on my mother's side into lampshades, soap and socks for submarine crews. In my younger days I took my turn in the streets demonstrating against tyrannies of both left and right, and a student house in which I lived at the time was threatened with firebombing by the BNP for hosting an exhibition about the "disappeared ones" in Chile under Pinochet. Trust me on this, I hold no brief whatsoever for such views.

But I have a major problem with criminalising them. Doing so gives the government the legal standing to tell people what they can and can't think, and I see that as very, very dangerous. Ridicule and disapprove those views by all means, and make that clear to the people who hold and propagate them, BUT if you turn them into criminal offences you risk pushing society down a slippery slope which could lead anywhere. One day a government may well decide to criminalise something you believe. What will you do then?
 
Judge Jules said:
Guys, I hate prejudice as much as you do. The Nazis turned close relatives of mine on my mother's side into lampshades, soap and socks for submarine crews. In my younger days I took my turn in the streets demonstrating against tyrannies of both left and right, and a student house in which I lived at the time was threatened with firebombing by the BNP for hosting an exhibition about the "disappeared ones" in Chile under Pinochet. Trust me on this, I hold no brief whatsoever for such views.

But I have a major problem with criminalising them. Doing so gives the government the legal standing to tell people what they can and can't think, and I see that as very, very dangerous. Ridicule and disapprove those views by all means, and make that clear to the people who hold and propagate them, BUT if you turn them into criminal offences you risk pushing society down a slippery slope which could lead anywhere. One day a government may well decide to criminalise something you believe. What will you do then?
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It's far more dangerous if we are going to accept racism and racial slurs as an integral part of every day lingo.

With all due respect I am not sure I understand your One day a government may well decide to criminalise something you believe - fear in this particular case? Criminalize something I believe in, as in that another race or culture is of lesser value than mine? If I ever were to believe such nonsense and I even felt the need to shout it at the faces of those I felt inferior too I would certainly hope for any Government to slap me over the wrist and ask me to wake the fuck up..
 
Criminalising it and banning it in the workplace (which is essentially what the football pitch is) are two different things.
 
I would say calling someone Gypsy in a derogatory term does deserve a ban. The Gypsy community were killed in the millions and continue to face ill treatment as somehow they're seen as less human.
 
Rosco said:
Criminalising it and banning it in the workplace (which is essentially what the football pitch is) are two different things.
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Not really, a worker or a criminal both have the same right to free speech. So regardless of the location, you're still making a finding that it is an offense which is not protected by those rights. You're saying the victims right to his pussy feelings outweighs the dickheads right to free speech. That is the dangerous slope which personally I am laughing maniacally about as the world slips down it towards its eventual end. The world deserves it because of Suarez.
 
In a world where you get litigated for the slightest indiscriminate thought, and where I'm still the best god damn lawyer in the city, then in that world I am God.
 
dantes said:
Not really, a worker or a criminal both have the same right to free speech. So regardless of the location, you're still making a finding that it is an offense which is not protected by those rights. You're saying the victims right to his pussy feelings outweighs the dickheads right to free speech. That is the dangerous slope which personally I am laughing maniacally about as the world slips down it towards its eventual end. The world deserves it because of Suarez.
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All rights can be restricted.

Criminalising is too extreme, but restricting racial abuse in the workplace (with a ban / suspension/ fine) is much less restrictive and a proportionate interference with a right to free speech.
 
Rosco said:
All rights can be restricted.

Criminalising is too extreme, but restricting racial abuse in the workplace (with a ban / suspension/ fine) is much less restrictive and a proportionate interference with a right to free speech.
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It's not too extreme because racial abuse is a criminal offence, in the UK it's in breach of the public order act. So that is fine, because someone with a brain has drafted and debated that act after weighing up all the respective rights. And people should know it is a criminal offence.

What the world is doing is bastardizing that or similar acts into their own private policies and regulations, and then trying to police people's thoughts according to their own agenda. That's fine, but then once you admit that is your policy, once you make it a term in the contract, well then the fun starts when people hear some arbitrary combination of vowels and consonants they take offence to, collapse to the floor in horror, and call for an ambulance/lawyer.
 
Kay Age El said:
It's far more dangerous if we are going to accept racism and racial slurs as an integral part of every day lingo.

With all due respect I am not sure I understand your One day a government may well decide to criminalise something you believe - fear in this particular case? Criminalize something I believe in, as in that another race or culture is of lesser value than mine? If I ever were to believe such nonsense and I even felt the need to shout it at the faces of those I felt inferior too I would certainly hope for any Government to slap me over the wrist and ask me to wake the fuck up..
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Nobody's talking about "accepting" it. There are plenty of things which most people find objectionable but which either aren't unlawful or are never punished. For example it annoys the feck out of me when some idiot drives past with his windows down and grime music blasting out of his car, which he's turned into a boombox on wheels, but good luck getting anything done about it.

As far as your second para.goes:

(a) If Clinton had been elected in the States that day would have arrived. Despite claiming to be a Christian herself, she's on record as saying Christian principles in respect of abortion "would have to change". For her and those who think like her, it's not enough that society has decided to allow itself the right to legalise abortion - if she had her way nobody would even be allowed merely to abstain from facilitating it, regardless of their beliefs on the subject.

(b) I completely and utterly disagree with the "Government to slap me over the wrist" bit. That's the kind of reasoning which paves the way for dictatorships to arise.
 
Judge Jules said:
Nobody's talking about "accepting" it. There are plenty of things which most people find objectionable but which either aren't unlawful or are never punished. For example it annoys the feck out of me when some idiot drives past with his windows down and grime music blasting out of his car, which he's turned into a boombox on wheels, but good luck getting anything done about it.

As far as your second para.goes:

(a) If Clinton had been elected in the States that day would have arrived. Despite claiming to be a Christian herself, she's on record as saying Christian principles in respect of abortion "would have to change". For her and those who think like her, it's not enough that society has decided to allow itself the right to legalise abortion - if she had her way nobody would even be allowed merely to abstain from facilitating it, regardless of their beliefs on the subject.

(b) I completely and utterly disagree with the "Government to slap me over the wrist" bit. That's the kind of reasoning which paves the way for dictatorships to arise.
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There's a gulf between being a racist gimp and the example you come up with mate. Don't understand how you can compare the two at all. Loud music, really?

Secondly, I am not sure what you are on about with the Clinton comment - that you find it critical if someone were to set the abortion free? Do you think it's better that Trump has 'decided' what 'she' should do with her own body and fetus - because some old book backs him up? I may completely misunderstand what you are saying here mind. Please correct me if I do.

Anyways, it all comes down to whether you think it's a criminal offense or not, being a racist. We seem to disagree strongly there, you compare the act of racism to be playing annoyingly loud music from a car. If you like me believe racism and bigotry is something we should do whatever within our powers to eradicate, like crimes, violence, rape, theft, greed etc., then some kind of punishment is in order just as it is if you harm someone physically.
 
I'll tell you exactly how I can compare the two. I'm racially Jewish but I don't consider anti-Semitic remarks any more harmful to me than the tw@t who loudly inflicts his choice of music on me and others. The vast majority of people will ignore or criticise those remarks and those who make such remarks will only discredit themselves, whereas if they're made martyrs they will gain sympathy for themselves and possibly for the rubbish they utter. If you really think those few idiots are more dangerous than allowing governments to dictate what people are allowed to think, we're never going to agree about this.

I've re-read what I posted about Hillary Clinton and AFAIC it's perfectly clear. It's not about abortion (though I totally disagree with you on that issue) but about freedom of thought. You previously cast doubt on my warning that, if governments are allowed to dictate what their populations are allowed to think, they may end up criminalising beliefs which any of us can lawfully hold at the moment. Well, abortion's been legalised in the US but most Christians believe it is wrong and holding that belief is not unlawful, nor does it prevent those who want to have an abortion from doing so. However, during Clinton's election campaign she still said more than once that such beliefs about abortion "would have to change". She said those exact words and I don't think one has to be against abortion to find that frightening. Once you allow governments to go beyond regulating what people do and start telling them what they are or are not allowed to think, you cross an extremely dangerous line.
 
But this has nothing to do with govt.

If someone in work repeatedly called a colleague a gypsy in a derogatory manner they'd rightly get fucked. That's all that's happened. It's just bad manners being sanctioned.
 
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