Mon­key and go­ril­la chants, and ba­nana emo­jis di­rect­ed at Black ath­letes are preva­lent in Eu­rope. Black and brown foot­ballers face racist mi­croag­gres­sions in­tend­ed to hurt and sub­ju­gate.

​It is time to end the de­nial of an­ti-Black racism and ne­gro­pho­bia in glob­al sport and the Olympic Move­ment. Will glob­al sport, in­clud­ing the Olympic Move­ment, ever be free from racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and in­equal­i­ty?

His­tor­i­cal and sys­temic racism af­fects economies, in­dus­tries, so­ci­eties, and pol­i­tics—sport is im­pact­ed. The dan­ger of an­ti-Black racism and ne­gro­pho­bia is that skin colour it­self is a sign of non-ex­is­tence, of non-be­long­ing. If you are dark-skinned, you have to keep the pain to your­self, pre­tend to smile, to mask the hurt.

​The Olympics, since their mod­ern re­vival in 1896, have not been im­mune to the so­ci­etal prej­u­dices that plague our so­ci­eties, no­tably racial dis­crim­i­na­tion–Dara Dil­lion.

The lega­cy of racism against black­ness and dark skin con­tin­ues. Ig­nor­ing the ex­is­tence of dis­crim­i­na­tion and racism con­tributes di­rect­ly and in­di­rect­ly to per­pet­u­at­ing the prac­tices of overt and covert racism, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, xeno­pho­bia and in­tol­er­ance.

​On Sun­day (March 1), Es­pany­ol de­fend­er Omar El Hi­lali ac­cused Elche for­ward Rafa Mir of a racist in­sult dur­ing their La Liga game. Ref­er­ee Io­su Galech Apezteguia briefly paused the match un­der the an­ti-racism pro­to­col in the 80th minute af­ter speak­ing to the Mo­roc­co in­ter­na­tion­al, El Hi­lali.

Loud boos were heard dur­ing a brief break in play to al­low play­ers ob­serv­ing Ra­madan to break their fast dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s (Feb­ru­ary 28) Pre­mier League game be­tween Leeds Unit­ed and Man­ches­ter City. A mes­sage dis­played on the sta­di­um’s big screen stat­ed: “As tonight’s match takes place in­side the holy month of Ra­madan, play has been paused briefly to al­low play­ers to break their fast.” City had three Mus­lim play­ers—Rayan Cher­ki, Rayan Ait-Nouri, and Omar Mar­moush—in their start­ing line-up, with Ab­dukodir Khu­sanov on the bench.

​There has been on­go­ing de­bate in Spain about the tol­er­ance for racism fol­low­ing re­peat­ed racist in­sults against Brazil­ian foot­ball star Viní­cius Júnior.

The era­sure of black his­to­ry in South Amer­i­ca in the late 19th and ear­ly 20th cen­turies is well doc­u­ment­ed. The his­to­ry of slav­ery, and the racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion in­her­ent in post-slave so­ci­eties, are not taught in schools, ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed in law, nor dis­cussed.

When pressed about racism and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, sport lead­ers as­sert that ac­tivists are in­vent­ing prob­lems and pro­mot­ing dis­cord. We are still to see an In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) where the se­nior lead­er­ship re­flects the di­ver­si­ty of its glob­al stake­hold­ers. But this ought not to be a sur­prise.

In the 15th cen­tu­ry, Por­tu­gal be­came the first Eu­ro­pean na­tion to take a sig­nif­i­cant part in African slave trad­ing. Over time, the Por­tuguese de­vel­oped ad­di­tion­al slave trade part­ner­ships with African lead­ers along the West and Cen­tral African coast and the British and French even­tu­al­ly fol­lowed. By the 18th cen­tu­ry, when the trans-At­lantic slave trade reached its peak, the largest car­ri­ers of en­slaved Africans across the At­lantic were Por­tu­gal, Britain, Spain, France, the Nether­lands, the Unit­ed States, and Den­mark–Wikipedia.

March 21 is the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion. March 25 is the In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Re­mem­brance of the Vic­tims of Slav­ery and the Transat­lantic Slave Trade. Both days serve as re­minders to con­front the on­go­ing lega­cies of slav­ery and racism in so­ci­ety.

Which Eu­ro­pean In­ter­na­tion­al Sport Fed­er­a­tion ac­knowl­edges those two im­por­tant days? The IOC, World Ath­let­ics, UE­FA, World Rug­by, Com­mon­wealth Sports, FI­FA?