Disclaimer: Neither Matthew, Christopher, nor myself condone the behavior I am about to reveal to you displayed by some Bulgarians. We are merely observing the difference in culture and sharing with you.
For those of you in the football community (the real football, btw ⚽️), you may have heard about the UEFA Euro 2020 qualifier match between England and Bulgaria that stunned the world. If you didn't, here's what happened:
The match took place in Sofia, Bulgaria at the Vasil Levski Stadium which is home to the Levski Sofia football team (aka locally the blue team). This game is one of many that will determine who plays in the UEFA Euro Tournament summer of 2020. We actually have tickets to see two of the group-stage games in Bucharest and Budapest next year. Very excited! The Bulgarian national team ended up getting destroyed by England with a 6-0 final score on their home turf. Ouch! 😖That's gotta hurt.
Football is a 90-minute game of non-stop action that is split into two 45-minute halves. If you've been to a football match or watched one while drinking a pint at the pub, you'll know that football fans are passionate. They scream and chant for their favorite players and taunt the ones they don't like. You might even hear the referee get called a wanker! But name one sport where the referees are not wankers. Really. 😂
At the 28th minute of this game, officials had to pause and warn the fans to quit their racist chanting. Allegedly, some fans were chanting, "Monkey" at the black English players and imitating Nazi salutes. The game was stopped again at the 43rd minute because the racist chanting had not stopped. England's players were visibly upset. Officials even made a stadium announcement that threatened the game to be abandoned if the behavior did not stop. But it continued.....England fans who traveled to Bulgaria to support their team were even heard chanting back “you racist bastards, you know what you are”. The environment was tense as officials were trying to decide how to handle the situation. The worst part is that Bulgaria had been sanctioned in June 2019 for similar behavior and were required to black out many seats to control the amount of Bulgarian fans that could attend matches. Over the last 24 hours after the match, the Bulgarian Football Union president has resigned, and the Prime Minister of Bulgaria made a statement calling the fans "retards" for their behavior. But then, he goes on to claim that England was overdramatizing the situation, as if defending his people.🧐
Now, I was not at the game. But let me tell you what Matt and I have experienced while living here:
Matthew recently went to a Levski Sofia match with a friend at the same stadium about a month ago. Levksi ended up winning the match, but the story Matt came home with had nothing to do with the score. The game was a quick win really, 3-0 by the 35th minute. But it was when that third goal scored by a Levksi player, Nigel Robertha, that Bulgarian fans next to Matt were screaming, "I LOVE MY N-----!" I'm not writing it out to avoid offending anyone, but you know what he said. The fans were screaming it with a sense of pride and love for their team, but the use of such a word was appalling to Matt. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
I've had the opportunity to get to know a few Bulgarian locals with which I've had some real and honest conversations. Asking questions about their culture and their reaction to Communism are amongst some of my favorite things to do when I get to know a local. I've personally been told that Bulgarians are a racist people. They freely discriminate and use profane language to belittle others of a different race, and it doesn't stop with the black population which is very sparse here. They do not like the Roma population (gypsies) either. Yesterday, my taxi driver was talking to me about a gay man who is from a Roma family and created a successful music career. When he was describing the singer, he couldn't get the word "gay" out of his mouth and not for the lack of knowledge. He kept saying he was "left" or "not like real man." I finally said the word, and he nodded to confirm. This taxi driver was in his early twenties, so he wasn't of some older generation that just can't change. These discriminatory feelings are embedded in their society.
Christopher has even experienced his own shock and dismay coming home from school with stories of his peers freely using racist profanity in class, down the halls, and on the soccer field. He can't believe that his teachers do not correct the behavior when they hear it. As a young man growing up in a foreign world, I can only teach him to treat everyone equally and to stay classy. Be the leader who doesn't follow the crowd.
Living here is like what I imagined 1950s America was like. I haven't seen violence or segregated bathrooms, but racism IS actually alive here in Sofia. И аз не го разбирам..... Translation: And I don't understand it.