The Paris-based anti-racism advocacy group SOS-Racism issued a statement Monday quoting “several very well informed sources from the world of football” as saying Materazzi called Zidane a “dirty terrorist.” It demanded that FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, investigate and take any appropriate action.
FIFA, which reviews all red cards at the World Cup, would not comment on the specifics.
“This is a disciplinary matter now. I can’t give any statements now,” FIFA spokesman Markus Siegler said.
Materazzi, meanwhile, was quoted as denying the terrorist comment
“It is absolutely not true, I didn’t call him a terrorist, I don’t know anything about that,” the Italian news agency ANSA quoted Materazzi as saying when he arrived with his team at an Italian military airfield.
Lying mafiosi…
Update: The Times adds:
With many conflicting versions of events circling on the internet and in the world’s media, The Times enlisted the help of an expert lip reader, Jessica Rees, to determine the precise nature of the dialogue that caused Zidane to react in such a manner.
After an exhaustive study of the match video, and with the help of an Italian translator, Rees claimed that Materazzi called Zidane “the son of a terrorist whore” before adding “so just f*** off” for good measure, supporting the natural assumption that the Frenchman must have been grievously insulted.
Update 2: See below for SP’s comment on a Le Monde article that suggests Zidane’s sister may have been insulted, as well as his mother. These Italians know no boundaries… Also, check out this.
Apparently Materazzi insisted he “didn’t even know what the word terrorist means.” Hahaha.
I was very amused at the utterly French three-part article on the different hypotheses in Le Monde, like a classroom exposé:
Pourquoi Zidane a-t-il craqué ? Les différentes hypothèses
LEMONDE.FR | 10.07.06 | 19h05 • Mis à jour le 10.07.06 | 19h53
Qu’est-ce qui a pu faire disjoncter Zizou, dimanche 9 juillet, en finale du Mondial ? Qu’est-ce qu’a bien pu lui dire l’Italien Marco Materazzi pour recevoir un coup de tête en plein torse ? Depuis la sortie sur carton rouge du capitaine de l’équipe de France, les médias du monde entier se posent la question, tentent de décrypter sur les lèvres de l’Italien la teneur des – supposées – insultes… et les hypothèses se multiplient.
Des insultes racistes ? Une des hypothèses les plus souvent avancées serait que des propos racistes liés aux origines kabyles de Zidane auraient été prononcés. L’Italien serait même allé jusqu’à le traiter de “sale terroriste”. Ce que Materazzi a démenti catégoriquement, affirmant qu’il ne savait “même pas ce que ce mot veut dire”. Mais, sur les bases de ces rumeurs, l’organisation SOS Racisme a demandé à la Fédération internationale de football une enquête sur les circonstances qui ont entouré l’expulsion de Zinédine Zidane.
Des insultes contre sa famille ? Selon d’autres rumeurs, Materazzi s’en serait pris à la famille de Zidane. Bernard Tapie avait suggéré à l’issue du match que seule une insulte sur sa mère pouvait mettre le joueur dans cet état-là . Et selon la chaîne de télévision brésilienne Globo, Materazzi aurait traité la sÅ“ur de Zinédine Zidane de “prostituée” à deux reprises, avant d’insulter le capitaine de l’équipe de France lui-même.
Des insinuations sur son implication dans un scandale de dopage ? Ce sont les rumeurs rapportées par le journal britannique The Independent. Materazzi aurait accusé Zidane d’être impliqué dans le scandale de stéroïds qui avait secoué l’ancien club du milieu français, la Juventus de Turin.
Réponse, c’est promis, dans quelques jours. Selon son agent, Alain Miggliaccio, Zinédine Zidane devrait très bientôt s’expliquer sur les raisons de son acte. Le Français a expliqué à son agent que “Materazzi avait dit quelque chose de très grave mais il n’a pas dit quoi”. “C’est un homme qui normalement laisse passer au-dessus de lui ces choses mais, dimanche soir, quelque chose a explosé en lui, a poursuivi l’agent de Zidane. Il était très déçu et triste. Il ne voulait pas que ça se termine comme ça”.
Materazzi himself weighs in…the Mama’s boy. This showed up on Google news when I was scanning it, I SWEAR I’m not following the story like a bloody soap opera…
[…]…But the former Everton man told Gazzetta Dello Sport he definitely did not call the French skipper a terrorist, and claims he did not insult the midfielder’s mother either.
Materazzi said: “I held Zidane’s shirt for a few seconds. He turned to me, looked at me from top to bottom with utmost arrogance and said: ‘If you really want my shirt, I’ll give it to you afterwards’. I answered him with an insult.
“It was the type of insult that we’ve heard before so many times on the pitch, and sometimes we don’t even notice it.
“What’s sure is that I never called him a terrorist: I am not cultured and I don’t even know what an Islamic terrorist is. My sole terrorist is her…,” added the 32-year-old, pointing at his sleeping 10-month-old daughter.
“I certainly did not talk about Zidane’s mother. For me, mothers are sacred,” he added.
Even though I rooted for Italy, if Materazzi said anythng close to hwat he is rumored to have said, then good for Zizou, and Materrazzi needs to be fined.
And enough about the mafia jokes, please. I am getting really sick of them.
The red card was given correctly. It does not matter what Materazzi said. They could solve it out of the field.
http://www.worddisplay.com/index.cgi?justice
http://www.zidanematerazzi.com/
Whatever. There should be no room in soccer for racism. If you are trying to rattle your opponent- you do have a choise of comments- and making a racist remark should not be one of them because choosing to say it proves that you know its a problem for that person. And if you do make that choice, then you might reasonably expect to to have the shit beat out of you off the field shortly after the game.
I enjoyed ‘zazou’s message july 12 2.20am – succinctly put – obviously a fellow footballer! I really feel for Zidane, but the best answer to such disgraceful insults, on which I guess it’s easy to moralise after the event, would have been to have scored the winning penalty. Two issues here, one, Zidane’s retaliation was, according to football rules, wrong. Two, and more importantly, the initial taunting was a far worse general offence. General chirping is one thing and is, for better or worse, part of the game. However any prejudiced and personally-offensive abuse should be given the ‘boot’ both on and off the field. Please FIFA, less of the “Fair Play’ razzamatazz and more action at grassroots where maybe the TV camera isn’t always giving you free PR! Let’s educate our children that prejudice is unacceptable in their daily lives whether they believe a ‘Fourth Official’ is watching or not! We here in South Africa have experienced bitter times with respect to prejudice, but, we trust, we enjoy ahead a wonderful future epitomised by 2010.
A warm welcome to ALL for our first African World Cup!
Everyone has been looking at
Zidane’s “bad” history, especially with the Saudi Arabian
player; but no one seems to want to check out Materazzi’s
dirty history! He has been kicked off the pitch many times
for intentionally elbowing other players and other physical
abuses. He is also known to always be throwing around dirty
and insulting comments. Why should that be tolerated? Why
is it only the victim who reacts the one who is punished and
seen as a disgrace? I highly respect Zidane, not only for
his AMAZING footballing skills, but for standing up for the
morals that he was taught and not tolerating such
humiliation from the disrespectful Italian. Zidane, you are
my hero!
shame on you for resorting to the same kind of racist comments!!!!
See above: “LYING MAFIOSI”
I forgot to mention that my previous comment (“shame on you for resorting to the same kind of racist comments!”) is referred to Issandr El Amrani, the writer of the above article: “What did materazzi tell Zidane?”, who described the Italians as “lying mafiosi”…
A proposito della frase “lying mafiosi”: alcuni lettori di questo blog non hanno il senso dell’umorismo molto sviluppato. Gli Italiani invece il senso dell’umorismo ce l’hanno, ed é per questo, tra l’altro, che mi stanno simpaticissimi.
In other words: it was a joke. Italians are ahsan nass.
Zidane on television said he was not called a terrorist so va fungoo everybody do not be so quick to judge and by the way trash talk is a part of sports goes on all the time. Zidane over reacted to materazzi telling va a fungoo and the only way to save face is to play the i defended my mamma’s honour card please
Materazzi needs to be punished by taking away his world cup medal – and the Cup from the Italian team.
I feel he intentionally said bad things to Zidane to make him upset.
For me France won the world Cup, you can not be a winner if you intentionally insult the other team players.
Zidane you are my hero!!! You brought joy to so may people, you played soccer as none has ever played, that is your satisfaction.
Materazzi, your satisfaction? None!!!! Because now we all know what you did and that is a SHAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this topic has been talked to death. they are BOTH wrong. I don’t think Zidane is the innocent victim people are trying to make him out as. Taking away the cup to an ENTIRE team because one guy insulted a player would be completly ridiculous. Everyone who has insulted or been insulted in the entire FIFA cup this year would have come forth then, I am more then certain you’d have french players in the bunch of those who insulted and provoked.
claims that Materazzi is a racist, have already been proven as faulse. What about all the racist claims that have come out against italians since the even? Does this give me the right as an italian to go and push or act violently against all these people because I will not tolerate them talking about my roots in that fashion? According to Zidane, we can now do this and get away with it and still be seen as a “hero”.
Both were wrong in their behavior. This should be delt in court, but to go as far as to say that the title should be taken away from italy, that italians are racists, that Zidane was the ONLY one provoked here, that he is the only human allowed to make a mistake, is absolutly ridiculous, and everyone knows it.
give me a fucking break already. I hope we find out what was said soon, I’m willing to bet it is such a general, “normal” insult that people will be more chocked about how stupid it was to make such a big deal about it… then the actual head budding scene.
Materazzi needs to learn to keep his mouth shut, and Zidane needs to grow up.
insulting is sharper than sword
now that you all know that materazzi didnt say anything racist ti zidane can you please stop tellin lies.
PS you are the true racists callin us mafiosi spaghetti and so on
Now I know what Materazzi’s speciality is…. and it definately isn’t football……
This guy should stop wasting his time in football, he should get into ultimate fighting… except that I saw Zidane headbutt Muttnutt (my nickname I lovingly gave this lunatic) and judging by the way he went down like a sack of potatoes he would not last five seconds…
P.S. for all the crazy people who defend Muttnutt by attacking Zidane, remember, Zidane was punished. Was Muttnutt red carded even ONCE for kicking the Ukeraine dude’s head in? (Surely Muttnutt’s eyesight isn’t that bad that he mistook his head for he ball…so not only is he a dangerous loony, he is nearsighted as well!)
What I personally don’t like of all this story is that while the bad behavior of Zidane is completely proved by video content, what Materazzi said has not been proved and it will not probably never proved.
In justice, at least in western right for what I know, you need to prove things, suspects are of course, and lukely, not enough.
Another thing I don’t like is the “class” aspect of the story: Zidane represents the rich guy with thousands of sponsors, Materazzi represents the worker, the defender doing all the day the dirty job.
As always happens in class struggles, the rich guy is always right…
uhhh that was soo stupid what materazzi said to zidane i think that marco should have been kicked out of the game because of that i mean come on play the game and dont call anyone a terrorist… words hurt more than what zidane did to him. Marco should deffinatly be fined. i mean zidane’s mother was in the hospital at the time and i cant believe he would lay that low to actually insult the poor guy. Zidane is a great player and evreyone should understand that he did that for a right reason i mean come on those stupid reffs dont actually think that ZIDANE the nicest guy ever would actually go up to a guy and just hit him for nothing. thats why i hate MARCO MATERAZZI !!!! and i deff. understand why Zidane said that
In response to Sarah:
Materazzi said he did not call Zidane a terrorist or insulted him in a racist way.
Zidane did not claim he was called terrorist or insulted in a racist way.
Why you continue to say that Materazzi call Zidane terrorist? According to both players it is not what happend.
I really think it’s a shame that the final was ruined because probably of Materazzi’s racist remark, yet FIFA embodied the whole event with “Say no to racism” banners. Soccer has become a shameless racist sport. I think I will try to pick up another sport where leg breakers and other thugs, at least remember the advantage of “generic” insults like “a**hole” etc. Racism is too personal, same with attack on families. And please don’t give me no lip about learning to “cope” with insults and racism, you can’t, and THAT’S WHY FIFA added rules, if ONLY NOW they would apply them, to clean the sport and send a strong message to future generations. It is not Materazzi’s first racist slurs, the Ivory Marc Zoro left the Italien soccer field because of him, and later the former said the latter was doing this for publicity. ARg sorry world.
Materazzi, please switch to another sport I don’t bother watching.
I am deeply antiracist but I would like to express again what I think about the matter:
Materazzi said he did not call Zidane a terrorist or insulted him in a racist way.
Zidane did not claim he was called terrorist or insulted in a racist way.
Why you continue to say that Materazzi called Zidane terrorist or insulted him in a racist way? According to both players it is not what happend.