Wesley Sneijder does not think that the Veronica Inside program would have been boycotted by the Dutch national team if he had still been active as an the Dutch international. The former international was a guest at the talk show on Wednesday evening and let his light shine on the boycott, which was created a year ago by the players of the Dutch national team, the Dutch Juniors and the the Dutch Lionesses. The measure was full for the players when Derksen made a comparison between rapper Akwasi and Zwarte Piet. “Johan is not a racist,” said Sneijder.
Genee during the broadcast of Veronica Inside indicated that Derksen made a ‘rather clumsy joke’ about Akwasi last year, which led to a boycott from the Dutch national team. The the Dutch internationals had enough and since then they no longer talk to reporters from Veronica Inside. “That is the opinion of the player group at the time. If I had been part of that group and maybe some other guests from the old guard, then maybe a completely different opinion would have come out,” Sneijder responded. “We are of course talking about a subject that is very sensitive.”
Derksen added: “I don’t think it’s sensitive at all,” he said firmly. “Do you know who should have been boycotted? Akwasi. Who stood there screaming on the Dam. And behaved very rudely. That was not talked about. I’m kidding about the man who misbehaved and then the racism card was drawn again. It has nothing to do with racism. I will not withdraw a word from it.” Sneijder said that he agrees with Derksen: “It has nothing to do with racism.”
Sneijder was then asked by Genee whether it played a role in his eyes that the analysts of Veronica Inside have criticized the players of the Dutch national team over the years. “That it became a sum?” Sneijder: “Maybe, I don’t know Wilfred. I was not part of that discussion in the players group. This is a national discussion. As a Dutch national team you have to make a statement and they have done that. I agree with Johan: you can joke about anything. But this is a very sensitive subject. About short, fat, red, ugly, handsome, bald, there are all kinds of things…”, according to Sneijder, who was interrupted by Derksen: “Black or gay, those are subjects we are not allowed to joke about. Because then you are homophobic or racist.”
Sneijder indicated that it is ‘a very difficult theme’. “We can never put ourselves in the shoes of the dark people, what they go through. We can say very easily: we don’t see it, we don’t notice it around us. There are those who do notice. I come from a real working-class neighborhood and we have all the cultures you can think of there. I’ve never seen anything like this happen in my immediate environment. But there are those sick people on the face of the earth who are unfortunately racist. But I certainly know that Johan is not. John is not a racist. Only, if you’re joking at that moment when it’s all hot is, then you get such an action”, he refers to the boycott.
According to Derksen, football players are now ‘movie stars’. “They earn insane salaries, are surrounded by pumpjacks and profiteers. They drive cars that are way too big. And they think they are Our Lord. They just don’t know what criticism is anymore, because they hardly get any criticism. They are all royals. But we don’t have to crawl up the ass of all those football players to please them?”
“There is also a lot of pressure on those football players because they are a public figure,” responded Sneijder, who believes that football players are used a lot to take action and make statements. For example, he mentions kneeling before competitions in the fight against racism. “In my time, maybe once I would join on my knees in front of the image out there, that you have made your statement. But I’m really not going to get on my knees 20 or 25 times. You make your statement once, right? We all know that we are against it and then it must be ready. But it is not easy for football players either, because there is so much pressure on them. You almost have to, you can’t stay behind.”