OPINION
Danny Rose has said that he’s counting down the days until his football career is over and that he can’t wait to see the back of the game after suffering racist abuse.
He was one of the players who was abused while playing for England against Montenegro in the recent international break. It wasn’t the first time and sadly it’s unlikely to be the last.
But his comments are absolutely heartbreaking and reveal the real depth of the problem.
One Tottenham fan showed just how bad it is when he called into the Alan Brazil Show on talkSPORT on Friday morning (11.15am).
He said that physical abuse is worse than verbal abuse and that Rose could protect himself by paying for minders to save him from the worst of the abuse he gets. He added that he’d prefer to be called a ‘silly cockney’ than physically abused.
Clinton Morrison was on the show and found it hard to believe what he was hearing. He said the fan can’t possibly understand the situation as he’s not a black person.
Let’s make it very clear, this Spurs fan is not representative of Tottenham fans as a whole. But the view he holds is held by a lot of people in the UK.
The only real answer is education and that’s not a short-term fix, but the football authorities can help to make a difference with much, much harsher punishments for racial abuse. The sort of fines that are being handed out at the moment are almost laughable. As Rose pointed out, “When countries get fined what I probably spend on a night out in London what do you expect?”
Raheem Sterling has stepped up and started the debate and now Danny Rose has lifted his head above the parapets. The fact this is getting talked about is a real step forward, but much, much more needs to be done.