Sunday's UK Observer had a good story about ethnic and religious polarization in France, which provides a useful context in understanding the current fuss over Zidane's red card.

It's hardly surprising that more right-wing elements of the press would come down hard on Zidane's head-butt; one has to find racial epithets and religious stereotyping objectionable in the first place to understand how upset the guy must have been. 

Folks, I'm with Ali on this one. We need to show our support for Zidane.

The idea that he has somehow "damaged" his legacy, currently being spread by thousands of gadfly reporters (such as the one here) simply drives me up the wall.

Racism has polluted the spirit of football for too long. Perhaps everyone can learn something from all of this, and instead of pointing a finger at Zidane, look inward.

Somehow, racism seems to come with the territory. Somehow, it's still "OK" to call the opposing team's players "monkeys," "rag-heads," and so on.

The Zidane story discussed here won't go away. Le Monde is reporting that Zizou will talk in a few days time when he has had time to cool down. All the publicist so far said is that Zidane said that the retaliation was for a really eggregious comment. Maybe some of our french speaking readers find the story and make it available. All I know is that if Zidane thinks its egregious, then we should support him. Two independent newsources, AP and a Russian source I can't pronounce, and one French agency, Paris-based anti-racism advocacy group SOS-Racism, have concurred on "dirty terrorist." Man, this is like hadith-sciences.

There are reports that it was a racial slur. The UK Daily Mirror says the slur was "Arab Terrorist." Materrazi, the 'victim' in this episode, obviously instigated Zidane, of the specifics we have no idea. In the past, Zidane has been taunted both for his French citizenship (by a Saudi) and for his religion. He received red-cards for his retaliation both of those times. Materrrazi's father "managed the notoriously right-wing, racist Italian club S.S. Lazio. In 2000, England players received racist threats and chants from Lazio fans and Lazio players had even, until recently, openly used the fascist stiff-arm salute at games." [This post has been updated with a transcript below].