Racism in sport and how responsible are teams for fan behavior?

A 23 year old Brazilian soccer fan was caught on camera calling the opposing sides goalie (who's black) a monkey.
As punishment, Gremio has been banned from the Brazil cup this year.

Brazil's sports disciplinary commission also issued the club with a fine of 50,000 reais ($22,300; £13,500).

"I don't think racial abuse incidents like that will happen again," commission head Fabricio Dazzi said. "The fans will think twice, knowing that their club can be punished for their acts."

Also, the woman and all those in her area are banned from attending Brazilian football for 2 years. She claims to have been fired, had death threats made against her, and has had to flee the area.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-29089608

Racism is a serious issue in many foreign leagues, especially in South America and southern and eastern Europe (although pretty much all of Europe is surprisingly racist by American standards, ironically enough the Krauts are considered the best by most non-white American soccer players). FIFA has called for zero tolerance. Does the punishment fit the crime?

Step 1. Puts on a Cowboys jersey
Step 2. "Shouts RGIII is a monkey!"
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit

This is about the stupidest fucking thing I've heard of in a while. The potential for abuse is staggering, and just the thought that someone can be held responsible for someone else's action is mind blowing.

I know next to nothing about sports, but in terms of game theory, what is to stop a fan of team A to wear the colours of team B and incur penalties against B by shouting slurs at team C?

Nothing except that the hooligans we're talking about would probably rather take a bullet than wear another teams colours.

Years ago the NFL tried to penalize teams for fan noise. It didn't last the preseason.

The Krauts are the best behaved because they love to follow rules, period. There must be a rule against being a bigot, so they follow it. BTW calling someone a monkey is not being a racist, it's being a bigot. Brazil should know this.

That makes sense, but I'm guessing it also makes them the kinds of people who will still shout their racism out loud even if it hurts their team.

Dumb. The woman being ostracized is reason for people to think twice, it is not reasonable to penalize the team unless the club some how encouraged the behavior.

Very little, however the punishments are designed to make the clubs get their house in order. Thunk of it less as punishing a crime so much as punishing them for allowing such attitudes to fester, the aim is that if the clubs want to avoid such punishments in the future they'll police their fans more vigorously.

In which case the fan of Team A is doing Team B a favour in the long run.

You know very few Germans then.

I lived there for 3-1/2 years. Trust me compared to Italy (for example) they are all about the rules/procedures/precision/discipline/etc.
Maybe when they leave their country they let their guard down, but in country they are something else.

I've lived with two German families, gone to several festivals, visited various cities and towns, pubbed and clubbed outside the tourist areas in those places, chatted with a biker gang, sat and watched football with them, and have yet to see what you describe apart from in a handful of people, most of whom were teachers or police.

I don't know the situation at Gremio so a couple of assumptions.

If they were yelling at a goalie they were probably at one of the ends.
The ends are where the 'supporters' usually sit as they are considered bad seats and cheap.
Supporters tend to be organized into larger groups and then even smaller subgroups that all have their own location where they stand.

Also, the FO (Front Office) will generally have some or relationship with Supporters Groups that allow them certain privileges such as bringing in drums or a PA, flags, and especially for TIFO (the giant displays) etc. etc.

Those things just don't magically appear.

So FOs tend to have a bit more control over the behavior of their more rabid fans than what we're used to in America.

Would the woman be getting ostracized if she hadn't caused the harm to the local team?

Why are you surprised that Europe is so racist by American standards?

Europe has always been racist.

I disagree. On the abuse part.

Because if Team Fan A will go to a Team B game in B fan gear and fuck up Team B you know someone from Team B's fans is going to Team A's place in Team A fan gear and fucking up Team A.

Everything balances out. No one plays.

It's going to be hard to punish a team simply because of a fan.

Considering your grossly inaccurate "I've lived in Britain and I remember X" view of the British, I think we can conclude that your assessment is most likely ignorant bullshit.

The reality, of course, is that different subcultures exist everywhere, to say nothing about individuals, and you can't make general rules. IIUC, oldfella was stationed here as a US soldier, whereas you hang out with biker gangs; one could imagine how your experiences would differ a bit.

As a rough tendency, my own experience more closely mirrors oldfella's; other cultures I've visited seem far less willing to accept rules than ours.

Explicit rules, at least. We're definitely high-context. Common sense might easily take a back-seat to "Hey, that's not written down anywhere, so we don't have to do that." If you really want to compare cultures, the much more interesting question is who follows which rules. For instance, Germans, to me, as a rough general observation, seem more likely to drop politeness than most other cultures -- unwritten, see? On the other hand, the superficial image of following explicitly defined rules seems that much more important to Germans in other fields. For instance, we seem to have less universal corruption than many other first world nations, speaking to a tendency to follow rules; but we do have some, and admitting that fact is considered a major rupture here, because the idea that we do follow rules seems almost more important than actually following them.

Not just biker gangs. When I travel somewhere I care little about the backdrop of whoever I'm talking too, most of the people I end up with are 20-40, ranging from students and backpackers to surgeons and new media types. Life's a little short to piss in shallow ponds when there are oceans to explore.

Fair enough, although my own experience has been very much It Isn't Cheating If You Don't Get Caught (which is why a number of UK business types tend to spittake when we get the likes of Merkel wag fingers about offshore funds, German companies are some of the worst for it.)

Yeah, pretty much this. If the ticketholder can be identified then fandom is often pretty easy to determine: fan groups, season tickets, etc. Also note, from the original link:

The team has a history of not keeping its fans under control. This wasn't an isolated incident resulting in a forfeit out of nowhere but rather the endgame in a series of reprimands and punishments designed to reduce the incidence of virulently racist abuse being shouted at opposing teams' players from Gremio's "supporters." If the team had just ejected and banned abusive fans on its own accord then the forfeit would not have happened.

The world outside of America is horribly racist.

If they stick to this banning the team scheme, soon Soccer will only be played in North America.

What? Impossible! America is the big bad meanie - much of the rest of the world is a bastion of socialist diversity and equality.

Last I checked, they invented racism.
And slavery.

They didn't invent any of that stuff. That stuff has been going on since man came into existence.

But I've always found it laughable that Europe has somehow gotten this reputation that they are not racist compared to America.

It's a "grass is always greener" thing. They have cool accents, don't shoot each other on a daily basis, and don't eat a BK Whopper while they drive down the
road in a beat-up truck. Thus they are superior in every way, so it would make sense that they have the moral/intellectual high ground
which would go hand-in-hand with not being racists.

im afraid you're going to need to explain this logic to me

I've explained this before: racism means believing one race is superior over another.
Bigotry is not liking a specific race or other grouping of people for any number of reasons.
If I call you a monkey does it mean I'm better than you? Not at all - monkeys pretty much kick ass,
but are annoying because they throw feces and steal my watch if it falls in their cage.

Bullshit. Racism is any discrimination based on race.

You don't get to redefine the English language to avoid facing up to what you are.

World outside USA and Canada is horribly racist.