South Korea Files Complaint Against Slant Eyes Gesture By Russian Volleyball Coach
I just don’t understand how someone could win a major volleyball match to qualify for the Olympics and the first thing to come to mind is to make the slant eye gesture?:
The South Korean national volleyball federation said Wednesday it will lodge a complaint against a Russian women’s team coach for his racist gesture following a recent match.
Russia defeated South Korea 3-2 (21-25, 20-25, 25-22, 25-16, 15-11) in the final Group E match of the FIVB Women’s Volleyball Intercontinental Olympic Qualification Tournament at DS Yantarny in Kaliningrad, Russia, on Sunday (local time). With that victory, Russia earned direct qualification for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In post-match celebration, Sergio Busato, an Italian-born assistant coach for Russia, was photographed making the slant-eye, racist gesture.
Russian website Sport 24 carried a photo of Busato with his two index fingers on his eyes. The accompanying blurb simply said the coach “did not hide his positive emotions” and showed a gesture depicting narrow eyes, with no mention of the gesture’s implications.
FIFA bans this and other discriminatory gestures under its disciplinary code and once sanctioned Colombian midfielder Edwin Cardona, who resorted to the act in a friendly against South Korea in November 2017. But FIVB, the international volleyball federation, isn’t known to have specific rules against racist or discriminatory acts.The South Korean national volleyball federation said Wednesday it will lodge a complaint against a Russian women’s team coach for his racist gesture following a recent match.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
This Russian guy is a despicable jerk.
So will the Russian coach file a counter-complaint against all the Korean athletes getting big round eye surgery?
I hope no one takes this the wrong way; but isn’t volleyball the badminton version of kickball? I mean, it’s the kind of game kids play at church camp. It’s not a “real” sport like getting a weird haircut, spouting cursewords, and kneeling for the Star-Spangled Banner… /s
“isn’t volleyball the badminton version of kickball”
I don’t know how anyone could take that the wrong way considering I doubt there’s a right way to that statement. 😛
Well, Smokes, you should sit down with me over a seasonally-appropriate beverage as I talk about how kickball (soccer) became The World’s Favorite Game®…
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Just to clear up any misunderstandings, this coach is an Italian national, coaching for the Russian team.
As I remember it, the universities had women’s volleyball teams and were quite competitive. We had 2 Korean nationals who drove our ambulance and they cheered for opposing teams, they would tease each other about the other teams fortunes at shift change.