The Olympics Has a Bad Guy: Anyone in an Argentina Jersey
The Olympic Games have long been governed by a tacit code: If fans can’t say anything nice, they shouldn’t say anything at all. Jeering, whistling and catcalling at athletes who have spent years to make it to the pinnacle of their sports is “unacceptable,” as Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, once put it. To boo is, well, taboo.
As far as the French are concerned, though, there appears to be one exception: anyone wearing the sky blue and white of Argentina.
In the opening few days of the Paris Games, Argentina was booed before, during and after a men’s soccer game in Marseille. It was heartily booed for three days straight every time its men’s rugby sevens team appeared at a packed Stade de France. And it was booed again whenever one of those rugby players had the temerity to touch the ball.
Its anthem was booed once more — although a little more gently — when Argentina’s team made its debut in the men’s volleyball tournament at the South Paris Arena on Saturday evening.
The hostility has left some of the country’s opponents wondering what is going on. Nick Malouf, an Australian rugby sevens player, said he “did not know the background” behind the tension. Antony Mboya, representing Kenya in the same sport, assumed the local French crowd was just “backing an underdog.”
In reality, the animosity is much more targeted. Both sides have come to understand that France, at this moment in time, does not much like Argentina. “It has become a real rivalry for us,” said Jules Briand, a French fan who traveled both to watch his team compete in rugby sevens and to indulge in a little jeering.
Where fans differ is on the root causes for what is, in a sporting sense, something of a new phenomenon.
France and Argentina do not share any real historical antipathy in soccer or rugby, the two most tribal sports they have in common. Both, traditionally, reserve their enmity for others: Argentina for Brazil (and England), France for Germany (and England).
Argentina’s version of events is relatively simple: France is bitter over its defeat at the hands of Argentina in the final of the 2022 World Cup.
Marcos Moneta, a member of Argentina’s rugby sevens team, put it bluntly: “Maybe they are hurt by Lionel Messi.” His coach, Santiago Gómez Cora, was a little more diplomatic. “It is a part of soccer folklore that has passed over into rugby,” he said.
There is some evidence for that assessment. Emiliano Martínez, one of the stars of that Argentine victory in Qatar in 2022, was jeered while playing in France in May, though the French trace that less to the fact of the defeat than to what was deemed an intolerable level of gloating by Argentina’s players in its aftermath. “The players were not very gracious,” Briand said.
France’s explanation is a little more complex. “There are a few reasons,” said Gauthier du Pradel, a French fan who was idling outside the Stade de France during a break in the rugby tournament last week. He admitted, a little sheepishly, that he had joined the chorus of derision when he saw the Argentine players emerge.
He pointed to a couple of rugby-specific skirmishes — lingering resentment over competition in various disciplines of the sport and the arrest of two French players in Argentina on accusations of sexual assault — but he also mentioned a more recent, high-profile trigger.
A few weeks ago, after Argentina had won soccer’s Copa América in the United States, the team’s players were captured on a livestream singing a derogatory song about France’s players. It included lyrics that were racist and transphobic. “That song caused a lot of noise on social media,” du Pradel said.
That may be an understatement. Enzo Fernández, the player who filmed the incident, publicly apologized, but only after French officials criticized him. France’s soccer authorities have filed a legal complaint over “unacceptable racist and discriminatory remarks.”
Argentina has proved even more unwilling to take responsibility. The country’s conservative vice president, Victoria Villarruel, insisted that France was in no position to censure Argentina over race given its “colonialist” history.
Javier Milei, the libertarian Argentine president, removed a lawmaker who had called on Messi himself to apologize. “No government can tell the Argentine national team, world champion and two-time champion of Copa América what to comment, what to think or what to do,” Milei’s office said at the time.
Milei has since tried to distance himself from the controversy: he was scheduled to meet with Emmanuel Macron, his French counterpart, while visiting Paris for the opening ceremony. Argentina’s athletes, maybe with the exception of Moneta, have done what they can to downplay it, too.
“I’m happy if they cheer for us or if they insult us,” said Luciano De Cecco, the captain of Argentina’s men’s volleyball team. “I don’t get mad, and nor do I enjoy it. It’s part of the game.” Gómez Cora, the rugby coach, insisted the boos were preferable to silence. “I’d rather have people for you and against you than a crowd sitting there bored,” he said.
There is, even the French fans admit, a slight element of pantomime to it. “It’s not a real hatred,” said du Pradel, the French fan. “If I saw an Argentine now, I’d have a beer with them.” The anger over the song, though, is not an act. For that, he said, “they are going to get booed everywhere.”
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