Jose Calderon responds to Spanish controversy

If you read BallinEurope on a daily basis, you probably read this article about the Spanish national team. For some reason, people are more interested in discussing topics like this, than talking about basketball (Is the US team THAT dominant that we have to talk about things like that?).

My friend Jaime from one of the biggest Spanish basketball sites, solobasket.com, just sent me an email, letting me know that Jose Calderon himself responded to the article published in The Guardian.

I would like to share a story with you about something that happened with the Spanish National Team that someone interpreted incorrectly. It happened in the photo session where the Spanish National Team was introduced; one of our sponsors asked us to pose with a “wink” to our participation in Beijing, we made an oriental expression with our eyes. We thought it was something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as somewhat loving. Never the less some of the European media did not see it this way.

I was sure from the beginning, that nobody on the Spanish national team or the Spanish basketball federation had another intention, but with today’s media, you just have to know what something like this can start, especially to a team that seems to be one of the only teams to give Team USA a little bit of a competition.

After reading all the comments made, one of our readers (Maku) and also Alvaro posted a link to this picture, where you can see the Lithuanian national team dressed up like Spanish bull fighters. Once again, you should be judging this one.

Controversy around the Spanish national team

I am not really sure what to do with this. This is why I let you to discuss this one on your own. As one of our readers points out, the Spanish national team took this picture:

Spanish national team

As The Guardian, one of England’s leading newspaper,s points out, this is nothing special since Spain is well know for their racist actions.

Wow.

Of course this picture does not make any sense - I have been thinking about the reason for this one for two days now. I still don’t know, but it never came to my mind this is out of racism at all. 

You can pick people doing racist things in any country, but this does not reflect the majority of a whole nation such as Spain.