When George Weah taught me how to walk
Racism isn’t something you can easily kick out of football, or indeed from wider society. That’s why George Weah was so important: he taught Musa Okwonga and countless others how to proceed despite it.
Whenever I see a new fresh storm of racism breaking within Italian football, I think to myself: thank God for George Weah. Even the non-religious may watch his career highlights and wonder whether there really is someone pulling the strings. Though the latest round of monkey chants can be distressing to watch, it is sadly not new for black footballers throughout Europe to be routinely demeaned in their places of work. What makes Weah so remarkable is that he was in the midst of all this at AC Milan, and still proceeded proudly to the summit of the game.
When football’s historians look at the period which won Weah an unprecedented trio of accolades - in 1995 he became the first and only man to be named the African, European and world player of the year - they may be bemused as to what all the fuss was about. He averaged less than a goal every two games, with 33 strikes in 89 matches, and won only a French Cup, a French League Cup and a Serie A title. No-one could argue that these are astonishing numbers, but perhaps it is fitting that Weah’s greatness cannot be expressed in mere statistics. After all, when when a comet graces the night sky, you do not judge it by how long its light lasts, but by how beautifully it illuminates the heavens.
Why do I think Weah is so important now? Because he reminds us that, despite the odds, dark-skinned black men are still able to shine in Europe. This demographic is so often seen as a threat to this continent; their mass drownings in the Mediterranean often passing without much comment, their suffering in various refugee camps far from the headlines. Weah was more than football because he came from similarly tough surroundings he never allowed anyone to tell him that he was a lesser human being. Though he made great wealth, he never seemed to forget who he was. In that sense the Liberian, who would later the president of his country, was for many years an ambassador.
For someone who was not so prolific, Weah scored many great goals, most notably that one against Verona. But what is just as memorable about him is the way that he walked when the ball was far from him. He strolled about the San Siro as if it were his own front lawn. Watching him as a teenager, I thought: if I ever get turned back from the door of a nightclub because of the colour of my skin, if I ever get stopped by police, that’s how I want to walk off afterwards. I want to have that same easy stride, unencumbered by the burden of someone else’s ignorance.
“What is just as memorable about Weah is the way that he walked when the ball was far from him. He strolled about the San Siro as if it were his own front lawn. ”
Many people have it confused when they talk about “beating racism in football”. There are many days when there are no amount of goals you can score to silence bigotry from the crowds. Sometimes all that you can do is retain your dignity. Weah knew that, and that’s why he has so much love for Arsène Wenger, to whom he dedicated his Ballon d’Or. The two of them understood that the most important moments for a black footballer aren’t the ones when they are sprinting through on goal or soaring for another header; they are the quiet moments when you are deciding whether you have a place in this country, whether you have the self-belief to persevere. That’s why Weah will always mean more to me than a mere game; because he was one of the people who didn’t just teach me how to score, but how to walk.