On the Atlantic’s other side, I fell in love with balls — on boys and soccer pitches. I studied and lost my virginity in Canterbury, England, then moved to London for work on an employment visa. I wrote a Masters paper, When the Welcome Mat is Removed: The Rise of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Western Europe, analyzing qualitative public opinion data from the European Commission. I completed a post-graduate research at Universiteit van Amsterdam, obtained legal Dutch residency, fell in love with a Dutchman, learned Dutch, and got a gig at the American Embassy in The Hague. Throughout the years, I pretty much fucked my way through Europe including Holland, Spain, England, and Italy. I speak Dutch fluently, and I’ve studied a little Italian and French. Gotta know the language when I’m romancing the men, right? Living, working, and dating internationally aside, I’ve also traveled a bit through Wales, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, and Greece.

If you haven’t yet heard, AEK Athens F.C. midfielder Giorgos Katidis appears to be on a one-arm mission to make soccer unsexy. He received a lifetime ban after raising a Nazi salute to celebrate his winning goal. At present, it’s unclear whether the ban is exclusive to the Greek National Team. He could obtain citizenship and play elsewhere. It’s also unclear how many competitive clubs and leagues the ban includes, if any. Katidis has since apologized and his coach, 59-year-old German Ewald Lienen, backs his claim that Katidis didn’t know what the gesture meant. A wild guess: We should believe the dude smiling on the photo’s left doesn’t know either?

Image by J. Griffin Stewart

Racism and antisemitism exist in Europe, plainly and simply. Everyone from The New York Times to Forbes to the Harvard Crimson is writing about it. That said, the act of kicking a ball or bouncing it off the head doesn’t magically a racist or anti-Semite make. You might wonder: So, what the hell is soccer’s problem? Since the beautiful game, like all sports, is a product of the culture that produces it, a more right-headed question might be: What the fuck is going on in Europe? Glad you asked. In a nutshell: Growing domestic animosity toward those perceived to be immigrants or otherwise foreign. After the war, European governments and businesses recruited labor migrants en masse. Not only did many of these workers not leave after the rebuilding, those damn humans did things like bring loved ones, languages, and ideas about how the world works. They also had children who became first, second, and third generation Europeans who earned citizenship as a birthright. If you follow European soccer, you’ll notice pitches colorfully dotted with gorgeous shades ranging from pale pinkish-white to creamy, darker brown hues. Some crazed fans throw bananas at the darker toned flesh because, you know, brown-skinned people are apes who love that kind of stuff. Giorgos Katidis makes a Nazi salute because, you know, he simply has no knowledge of Greece’s current Nazi party nor did his European schooling include history lessons about Hitler and the Holocaust.

The Giorgos Katidis Story is a tale about modern racism and antisemitism and Europe, which plays out on soccer pitches. If you like thought-provoking discussions about sports, join me in Duke University professor Orin Starn‘s free online course Sports and Society. If all good writers are readers, all good teachers are students; although I’m on the sidelines for this one, where appropriate, rest assured I’ll pipe up to talk about balls.