The 2012 Summer London Olympics began on Friday, July 27 with a large opening ceremony followed by the parade of nations. Olympics consists of 26 sports which features different athletes from over 200 countries. Soccer is also an official Olympics game. However there has been a problem caused by a Swiss soccer player just two days after the initiation of the summer Olympics.
On Sunday, July 29, Switzerland played the first round game against South Korea. The game ended with Korea winning 2-1. The conflict arose after the game, when the Swiss defense, Michel Morganella posted a racist comment on his Twitter account. Morganella stated in the tweet that the South Korean people are a “bunch of Mongolians,” and that “they can go burn.” Morganella’s inappropriate behavior was spread over the internet in just few hours.
After the racist tweet, the Swiss Olympic team announced on Monday, July 30 that Morganella will be expelled from the Swiss Soccer team. Morganella has now apologized for his action and stated that he will accept the consequences.
But Morganella is not the first Olympian to be expelled from the team for the misuse of a social networking system. Voula Papachristou, a Greek triple jumper, was expelled for her racist message on Twitter toward Africans. She wrote, “With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitoes will be getting home food!” After the tweet was published, the Greek Olympics Committee decided to take her out of the 2012 London Olympics team.
The International Olympic Committee had encouraged the Olympians to contact with the sports fans through the social networking system, but was not able to foresee such problem that occurred in the case of Morganella and Papachristou. The athletes should be more careful in choosing appropriate works when making a public statement on the social media.
It’s always sickening to see things like this. What’s even worse is that this isn’t the first time a thing like this has happened. Outrageous. On a lighter note, great job with the article! It was very concise and coherent.