Galatasaray To Protest Racism Against Drogba By Wearing Blackface

Galatasaray's Didier Drogba faced your typical Euro-flavor of racism during this past weekend's derby match against Fenerbahce: monkey noises, bananas on the pitch, et cetera. In response, Drogba's teammates are pledging to wear blackface in their next match as a token of solidarity toward him and fellow players of African descent Emmanuel Eboué and Dany Nounkeu.

That's according to Turkish-language newspaper , which also features an odd altered image of what a team with painted faces might look like. (That same image appears on every article about the topic, all of which seem to be identical and in Turkish. Either one Turkish soccer writer really gets around, or they have a bit of a plagiarism problem there.)

Drogba, for his part, is mocking Fenerbahce supporters for the racism, given they won the derby 2-1 thanks to yet another black player (striker Pierre Webo, who is from Cameroon). Blackface obviously does not carry the same sociocultural history in Turkey as it does in the U.S., but it still seems like a bad idea somehow.