The Last Word: Why Spain does not agree that this is racist

Shortly before this summer's Olympic Games, an advert for a courier company appeared in Spanish newspapers. It featured photographs of the national men's and women's basketball teams posing in their Olympic outfits on a court decorated with a picture of a Chinese dragon. The players had their hands on their faces, pulling the skin back to make them look slant-eyed.

The advert provoked understandable criticism around the world for its racist undertones, and there were suggestions that it might undermine Madrid's bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Yet nobody – the players, photographers, advertising agency or courier company – had apparentlyquestioned the photographs. The advert, moreover, was still being used some while later.

Racism in Spanish sport was back on the agenda last week. The Football Association said they would not be happy about playing a friendly in the Bernabeu Stadium following the racist abuse of England players there four years ago, while Uefa, European football's ruling body, announced sanctions against Atletico Madrid following crowd disturbances and complaints of racist abuse during a Champions' League match against Marseille on 1 October.

In response, the chief sports columnist of the highly respected news-paper El Pais made a seemingly serious suggestion that it might not be a coincidence that the two announcements had been made on successive days given that, he said, the British and French (Uefa's president is Michel Platini) have been questioning the success of Spanish sportsmen such as Rafael Nadal, Fernando Alonso and Alberto Contador.

Abuse of black footballers has been a recurring problem in Spain. Two years ago, Samuel Eto'o had to be dissuaded by his Barcelona team-mates from walking off the pitch in protest after being taunted with monkey chants by Real Zaragoza supporters. Four years ago, Luis Aragones, the then national coach, was caught on camera referring to Thierry Henry as "that black shit".

There was even a racist controversyat a Formula One testing session in Barcelona this year. A group of spectators donned wigs, blacked their faces and wore T-shirts with "Hamilton's family" scrawled across them.

A common thread runs through most of these incidents. Neither the abusers nor the vast majority of witnesses could see anything wrong. They either considered it a harmless joke or just another way of taunting an opponent, as they might have booed a player who had fouled one of their own team.

The easy conclusion might be that Spain is full of uneducated racists, but do we really believe that of such a cultured and sophisticated nation, the country that brought us Cervantes and Lorca, Goya and Velazquez, and boasts a capital city adorned by some of the world's most famous art galleries and museums?

Talk to decent educated Madrileños – the sort who would abhor the idea that anyone would consider them racist – and you realise that they draw a much higher line over what is acceptable than the rest of us. One such young Spaniard told me this week that he knew of nobody who found the "slant-eyed" advert offensive, and that Aragones was "a difficult and occasionally vulgar man but definitelynot a racist".

Another explanation comes to mind as you walk through almost any Spanish town or city. Black faces are few and far between (which is odd when you consider that this is the closest European country to Africa).

The Spanish football squad who won Euro 2008 contained only one black player, the Brazilian-born Marco Senna. Of the few black players who are on the books of Spanish clubs, such as Real Madrid's Dutchman Royston Drenthe and the Malian Mahamadou Diarra, and Barcelona's Cameroonian Eto'o and Frenchman Henry, nearlyall are overseas imports.

Nevertheless, while ignorance may be an explanation for widespread acceptance of racist behaviour, it is still no excuse for it. There is a growing realisation among some thinking Spaniards that if others find it unacceptable then they must change.

They agree that some punishments have been too lenient – Real Zaragoza were fined only €9,000 (less than £7,000) over the Eto'o incident – and that Uefa's action against Atletico, even if the original punishment was ham-fisted, was a step in the right direction.

There are also increasing calls for football authorities and clubs to take racism seriously. Critics say there has been a reluctance to deal head on with the "ultra" right-wing supporter groups who are responsible for much of the racist abuse.

What Spain needs is an education programme along the lines of those run in Britain by the anti-racism group Kick It Out, who on Thursday launched their latest initiative, "One Game, One Community", which features more than 1,000 events celebrating racial diversity.

While racism is far from eradicatedin the British game, the sort of overt abuse that was directed at England players in Madrid has all but gone. "Today people would be ridiculed and belittled for shouting blatant racial abuse," Danny Lynch, a spokesman for Kick It Out, said.

"Yet 30 years ago people would have got involved in racist chanting with little fear of being reprimanded by fellow supporters."

Campaigning groups in Spain are in their comparative infancy, but believe there are some signs of progress. "Attitudes are changing, but it's a slow process," said Fernando Bonat of the anti-racism group Colectivo de Prevencion e Insercion Andalucia.

"The trouble is that most Spaniards don't think that there is a racism problem. Most football supporters wouldn't regard monkey noises aimed at opposition black players as racist.

"We have to educate people, to make them aware that such behaviour just isn't acceptable."