red. on Nostr: https://void.cat/d/3dGeGqnxbrSWL89RdBJ5mt.webp 29 years ago today, former Manchester ...
29 years ago today, former Manchester United striker Eric Cantona kung-fu kicked racism out of football.
Cantona launched at Crystal Palace fan Matthew Simmons who had been racially abusing him for being a “foreigner” at Selhurst Park Stadium. Cantona’s grandfather was from Barcelona, and was seriously injured fighting the armies of fascist General Francisco Franco in 1938.
It is reported that Simmons had a history of Nazi sympathies, attending far-right British National Party and National Front rallies, and attacking a Sri Lankan-born man in a violent robbery in 1992.
Simmons reportedly ran down 11 rows in the stand and heralded xenophobic insults at Cantona, who in response raced towards Simmons, climbed up the fence and gave him a kung-fu kick.
Cantona received a 9-month ban, was stripped of the captaincy of the French national team, fined £10,800, and penalized with two weeks of community service. “I have one regret,” Cantona said in an interview last year. “I would have loved to have kicked him even harder.”
#Cantona #Antifacist #FootballAgainstRacism
Published at
2024-01-25 14:00:50Event JSON
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