The Dutch national men’s, women’s and youth football teams have issued a joint statement that they will boycott a popular television sports program because of racial slurs and comments made by one of its national football pundits.
A number of players have collectively made a public stand on social media saying they will no longer be interviewed on Veronica Inside because of the racist comments by Johan Derksen, who likened a Black Lives Matter campaigner and rapper to the blackface character Zwarte Piet.
‘This is way beyond the limit,’ the statement said. ‘It is not for the first time and not for the second… enough is enough.’
Football analyst Derksen, 71, made the comment about a pro-Piet campaigner in full blackface at the recent anti-racism demonstration in Groningen.
‘How do we know that is not Akwasi,’ Derksen said, referring to the campaigner.
A spokesman for the Talpa television network which broadcasts the programme said that the comments are ‘up to the people’ at the table.
‘Veronica supports freedom of speech and opposes the deliberate insult of people or population groups.’
Oranje captain Virgil van Dijk, Georginio Wijnaldum, Memphis Depay, Jasper Cillessen, and Daley Blind are among the distinguished footballers publishing the statement. Advertisers On Friday broadcaster NOS said a number of companies directly and indirectly involved in advertising activities in or around the program were already rethinking their strategies.
Breweries group, Bavaria, one of the main sponsors of the show, issued a statement saying Derksen’s comment was ‘not a joke and is a step too far’.
The group’s sponsorship contract ends this month and will not be renewed, although this decision had already been taken before Derksen’s latest comments, the spokesman said. Other companies which advertise around the program, including fruit company Zespri, bookies Toto and telecommunications firm KPN said they were in talks with Talpa.
Derksen already has a record of having made insensitive racial slurs in the past, commenting that a certain black tv presenter and anti-Zwarte Piet campaigner would be ‘running around as a proud as an monkey’, a comment he later recanted and apologised for.
He has also been heavily under fire for having described two men who had launched a petition to make football more gay-friendly as ‘two young, hysterical little gay men’, besides also having commented that having too many Moroccan players is spoiling amateur football.