Why France Soccer TM has so much black man?

[BadMann2]

I wonder why!
Are they grown up in France?

 

[caaprius2]

Majority of French sportsmen are black. not only in football.. in basketball and athletics as well. France had many colonies in Africa last century, so I guess this explains a lot.

 

[Big Lebowski2]

And France has many Territories in other parts of the World too (Oceania, Central America): Thuram, for example, comes from Guadalupa in the Central America, that's a department oversea of France (or is it Martinique the department? Anyway, France is also a country who faced an enormous immigration, so it's pretty easy to find non-French players. The difference between France and other countries is the way in which people coming from abroad are considered: I mean, they are Frenchmen. Just few fanatics and stupid electors of the Front National of J.M. Le Pen hate them).

The best "Frenchman" ever was Djorkaeff, coming from Kalmykia. I really love the multiethnical France.

 

[Marius1232]

I wonder why!
Are they grown up in France?

Most of them, yes.

As far as I know, only three of the current French squad were born outside France: Vieira, Makelele, Boumsong. But they arrived to France at an early age. Trezeguet was born in France, but grew up in Argentina.

BTW, you have to remember that France has several overseas departments, which are technically and politically integral parts of French territory - no colonies or anything. The most important from the footballing respect, are, of course, the French Antille islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Thuram, Gallas, Saha, Wiltord, Abidal, Govou, Chimbonda all come from there. (And I guess some more guys are descendants from those islands, but born in the "traditional France" ). Malouda is from another "overseas department" - French Guayana.

Also, you've got immigrants from other former colonies of France.

P.Vieira had a choice at a young age, which country to rerpesent: France or Senegal ...

As a side note: if D.Drogba had become such a star a an earlier age, he most certainly would be playing for France now. (He arrived to France at the age of 5 and had all his football schooling here) ... but he broke through at a late age, overlooked by French Federation, so he already had picked Cote D'Ivoire as his football country.

The famous case of Z.Zidane - his roots are in Algeria, among one of the Berber minorities there (Kabiles). Zizou's father fought on the French side during the Algerian independence war, and later relocated to Marseille, after Algeria became a separate Arab country.

Similarly, the Dutch have lots of black players, many of whom are descendants from their former colony Surinam.

 

[Marius1232]

Majority of French sportsmen are black. not only in football.. in basketball and athletics as well.

Ice hockey, anyone?

 

[Billy2]

Immigrants making an impact in sports

Immigrants making an impact in sports

Most of them, yes.

As far as I know, only three of the current French squad were born outside France: Vieira, Makelele, Boumsong. But they arrived to France at an early age. Trezeguet was born in France, but grew up in Argentina.

BTW, you have to remember that France has several overseas departments, which are technically and politically integral parts of French territory - no colonies or anything. The most important from the footballing respect, are, of course, the French Antille islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. Thuram, Gallas, Saha, Wiltord, Abidal, Govou, Chimbonda all come from there. (And I guess some more guys are descendants from those islands, but born in the "traditional France" ). Malouda is from another "overseas department" - French Guayana.

Also, you've got immigrants from other former colonies of France.

P.Vieira had a choice at a young age, which country to rerpesent: France or Senegal ...

As a side note: if D.Drogba had become such a star a an earlier age, he most certainly would be playing for France now. (He arrived to France at the age of 5 and had all his football schooling here) ... but he broke through at a late age, overlooked by French Federation, so he already had picked Cote D'Ivoire as his football country.

The famous case of Z.Zidane - his roots are in Algeria, among one of the Berber minorities there (Kabiles). Zizou's father fought on the French side during the Algerian independence war, and later relocated to Marseille, after Algeria became a separate Arab country.

Similarly, the Dutch have lots of black players, many of whom are descendants from their former colony Surinam.

Its not just, France. I remember watching a Sweden U-21 football game a while back and all but three of the players on the pitch had foreign names first, last or both.
Most of them are first or second generation immigrants prevalently from Finland, the former Yugoslavia or more recently from east africa.
But that is not just in football, if you look at the Swedish basketball landscape you see a massive overrepresentation of players with foreign last names. Most of them choose to represent Sweden on a international level but you have the odd ones who choose to represent their ancestors countries/countries of origin.
Unfortunately, the ones who has done so in basketball are some of the better prospects Sweden has developed (Maciej Lampe, Damir Omerhodcic (sp?)/Markota). As Sweden has a longer and more prestigious tradition in football those same upper echelon talents (Ibrahimovic/Selakovic/Larsson)with a choice of contry to represent has decided to play for the country who educated them in the sport they have chosen.

Ice hockey, anyone?

I know there were a few ones a while back in the Swedish league and Ive seen some in the NHL. I dont know if they are playing anymore though. The problem for many minorities is that they both lack the rolemodels with a similar background and that icehockey is a very expensive sport to partake in as both equipment and transport costs add up. Many minorities has not the financial means either as they dont have the same social and financial network as second or third generations has built up.

However, its a global world and hopefully all financial and social/cultural difficulties minorities face today will be ironed out before not too long.

Just my two cents /Billy