The Copa América Final win Argentina’s men’s national soccer team recorded over Colombia Sunday already had some less-than-stellar aspects thanks to the security and fan crush issues at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. But the Argentina team’s response to that victory has caused further problems still. In particular, they posted videos of players singing a song disparaging the national heritage of players on the French men’s national team (which was not in this tournament):
Argentina’s Copa America winners were filmed singing a racist chant. Its xenophobic lyrics partly mock the French national team.
“They play for France,
but they are from Angola.
His mother is Nigerian,
his father Cameroonian,
but on the passport: French”pic.twitter.com/0vfQcaPPRT— DW Sports (@dw_sports) July 16, 2024
That obviously took a lot of blowback, and sparked a lot of controversy. And it’s notable that this wasn’t just outsiders filming. Indeed, some of this came from Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernández (who plays for Chelsea in England’s Premier League at the club level), who broadcast this on his Instagram account. But that led to his club teammate Wesley Fofana (a French national player who was born in France) calling him out:
Le football en 2024 : racisme décomplexé 🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️🤦🏽♂️ pic.twitter.com/MGkH5wPmNU
— Wesley Fofana (@Wesley_Fofana3) July 16, 2024
In the end, Fernández did offer an apology for this. Unfortunately for him, he did so in the most-mocked typeface. That would be Comic Sans. And that led to a lot of comment. Here’s some of that:
comic sans, the perfect font to show how remorseful you are https://t.co/iYccGisQMx
— ۟ (@capvirgvl) July 16, 2024
Using this font is so strange. I feel like if you want to be serious you got a serif font. Not this bubbly childish typeset. I’m not sure Enzo is as remorseful as he says he is. And where is the apology from the rest of the squad + the AFA? https://t.co/nQhW1sOsJR
— MU🅱️Z (@bigfanofLFC) July 16, 2024
Enzo’s PR team when they insisted on using comic sans pic.twitter.com/x6cP77Nxms https://t.co/JLi9HyAYZj
— Anfield Fix (@AnfieIdFix) July 16, 2024
Enzo wrote that apology using comic sans font, that aint gonna cut it, the only appropriate apology now is letting french Chelsea boys stomp him out when he gets back to Cobham
— Rheon (@thisisrheon) July 17, 2024
Enzo Fernandez publicly sung racist chants & was laughing about it. There’s no apology that should be deemed acceptable, let alone one in comic sans.
If you want to defend him, look at what he has caused by the comments Wesley Fofana is now receiving for speaking out against… https://t.co/ZFYN1TQvBm pic.twitter.com/f8TyclLgml
— Adam (@AdamJoseph____) July 17, 2024
Of course, the history here isn’t necessarily known by Fernández or his PR team. But Comic Sans in sports has long been mocked, particularly around Cleveland Cavaliers’ owner Dan Gilbert’s (later-removed) angry breakup letter to LeBron James in 2014. And it’s not a particularly serious typeface in general, and certainly not one that should be used for an apology.
Yes, the far more serious issue around the Copa América Final is the security failure and resulting fan crush. But that doesn’t mean these post-celebration actions from the Argentina team should be overlooked. (And it’s notable that their team’s official English Twitter/X account took different criticism earlier in the tournament.) And it’s definitely interesting that Fernández’s attempt to address this took criticism over a very-avoidable typeface choice.
