Some of these Europeans do not know how to behave. Idk what's in the air of this year's world championships but there's way more drama than usual... (skip this post if you dont care about volleyball)
For context, Polish volleyball player Huber recently complained that future tournaments should be held in other countries instead of the current host (Philippines). His reasoning is that the Araneta facilities are poor. And okay, I played sports when I was a teen, I've competed in some of these stadiums and I know from personal experience that many of them need improvement, so I get where he's coming from. But there's a big line between giving constructive criticism and straight up saying you reject the host? Especially since he admits the MOA arena had better facilities, yet instead of saying that Araneta should be renovated to be more like MOA, he still wishes for a richer host country. Maybe this isn't racist (even though the intersection of global poverty and non-white/non-western societies is very obvious with long historical basis), but it sure was elitist.
And then overtly racist europeans started crawling out of the woodwork to defend his statements, saying the quiet part out loud that they don't think Filipinos deserve volleyball and should leave it to europeans and using right wing dog whistles. This isn't the first time this happened either, in 2022 French player Toniutti complained that the PH not having a high-ranking national team should disqualify it from hosting.
Here's my problem with that: The Philippines basically invented modern volleyball. Seriously, look it up. You can find this info in the official Olympics websites and everything. The three-touch limit rule? Came from Filipinos. The very concept of spiking? Came from Filipinos. The concept of setting? Came from Filipinos. The Philippines is literally ingrained in the history of the sport. And most people, fans of the actual sport or even just fans of haikyuu, don't know this.
I'm so tired of the erasure just because this country isn't rich enough for first world countries. Like what, are you ashamed that it was Filipino natives under 1910s USA colonization who figured out how to make this sport exciting? Well, they did all that without formal training or established federations and teams or first world athletic investment. So why shouldn't the Philippines host the sport we contributed this much to?
Criticize the PNVF for their mistakes all you want (I've been doing that this whole tournament) but straight up wanting to ditch the Philippines is ignorant and elitist as hell.
It doesnt escape my attention that white/european countries are usually the ones that get these controversies, while non-white/non-western national teams have been nothing but open and gracious this entire tournament (shoutout Türkiye who played here for their first time and had an amazing run).
AND to restore my faith in Europeans, here's the legendary Captain Giannelli of Italy saying to be respectful to the host countries (a couple days after those elitist comments dropped) AND taking the time to visit a local volleyball court and play with some children, not giving a damn that it's 'dirty' or poor because he recognizes sports have value outside of medals. Class act. Other players should take notes.
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