Alternative Right, the sleek new white nationalist online magazine, has decided to use the world’s most famous sporting event, the World Cup, to talk about race and promote white superiority. I am not surprised that a racist publication is writing about the competition considering the World Cup’s massive following in the U.S. What is surprising is the writers’ approach, and the amount of factual errors.

In the article “Black Men Can’t Kick,” Joe Kowalski, a sports writer of all people (albeit for the website Caste Football, a site that promotes the achievements of white athletes), commits many factual errors. First, he states, “France has shown no such resistance. Historically not a soccer power, they won their only World Cup in 1998…”

France actually IS a historical soccer power. Besides winning the World Cup in 1998, they won the European Championship in 2000 and 1984. They also have a gold medal from the 1984 Olympics and a silver medal from the 1900 Olympics, not to mention its two Confederations Cup titles. The only other nation to have won the World Cup, Confederations Cup and the Olympics is Argentina. Kowalski goes on to state, “Denmark has 10 whites and one black who distinguished himself by accidentally hitting the ball into his own net and losing the first game for the Danes.”
What actually happened was that the black player, Simon Poulsen, headed the ball off of one of his teammates, causing the ball to go into his own net. The mistaken goal was credited to Daniel Agger, not Poulsen.

In one of the other articles, “The Decline of France in Pictures,” author Richard Hoste ranks select nations based on the number of whites and non-whites on each squad, and then show pictures of the French national team over the past few decades. This article also contains many errors.

First, Poland is ranked as first because its national team allegedly contains no non-whites. Hoste must have omitted Roger Guerreiro, the Brazilian-born Polish national who has been one of the best Polish players over the past few years. Hoste lists Ireland as second, with only one black player in the squad. Hoste again failed to include many black players that have worn Ireland’s green jersey over the past few years including Caleb Folan, Steven Reid and Stephen Kelly. Hoste then shows pictures of the French men’s national team to illustrate the increasing diversity of the team over time. What Hoste fails to tell the reader is that many of the non-white players have been France’s best performers over the past few decades. The top four French players with the most appearances for the French national team are all non-white. Half of the top 10 all-time leading goal scorers for the French National Team are non-whites.

The idea of looking at a picture of a team’s starting line-up and trying to decipher who is white and who isn’t is ludicrous. It is obvious that soccer diversity drives these guys crazy. They can’t stand the fact that many “non-white” teams or countries are soccer powers and that many of the “traditionally white” soccer nations are becoming more diverse.