Super Eagles defender, Leon Balogun has revealed how racism made him choose to play for the national team of Nigeria instead of Germany.
The 30-year-old Balogun, who was born to a Nigerian father and German mother, was raised in Germany.
He said he made the decision as a 15-year-old in 2003 while playing an U-16 competition in Germany.
Balogun told The Nation, “I was playing U-16 in Berlin, in 2003, and I had given up on my dreams of being Thierry Henry or Ronaldinho, so I was playing at centre back,” Balogun said with a breathy purr.
“The other team had this huge striker. He was bad news. I played really well, and I kept him in my pocket. We were up 1–0 at half-time, and as I was walking to the locker room, the striker kicked the ball at my head. It missed me by about an inch. Woosh! I turned, and he was yelling at me. He was calling me the n-word, using other racial slurs.
“Nobody did anything. There were people all around us, and nobody did anything. After the game, while we were still at the park, I told my dad about him kicking the ball at me. ‘Leon, you must always be calm. You’re smarter than they are. You’re better than they are,’ said my father.
“Then I told him what the boy said to me. And that, for the first time in my life, was when I saw my dad lose his cool. He had this look on his face. I told him I wanted to go home because mom said she was making a nice dinner.
“’No, we have to fix something.’
“So we waited in the parking lot for the boy to come out with his parents. They did. And my dad let them have it. ‘Hey, how can you raise your kid like this? Do you know what he said to my boy? We all come here to play football, and you lost, and that’s the game. But your son is 15 — he’s 15! — and he acts like this. I hope that you can one day fill his heart with love, instead of hate.’
“Their back-and-forth went on for a while, and the other parents weren’t very nice. But I will remember what my dad said forever: ‘Love, instead of hate’. He was very upset in that moment, but he used empathy over rage. And I began to understand, little by little, how he made being an immigrant look so easy. I think because my dad worked so hard to integrate into society in Germany, it gave me the opportunity to do the opposite and connect with my Nigerian roots.”