Stories like this are certainly disgraceful, and should hopefully motivate anyone committed to removing discrimination and racism from the Premier League and Football League. There’s no doubt that campaigns like Show Racism The Red Card and Kick It Out work incredibly hard in attempt to ridicule any suggestion of racism in football. Even David Cameron recently condemned it. In my opinion, campaigns like this should be given much more attention and promoted through the media, especially after what has gone on this season.
When an issue is made public, a case can be opened and punishments can be given, like we have seen with Suarez. However, what about when it is kept secret? Speaking about racism in the English game to BBC Radio Manchester, Reading striker and pundit Jason Roberts revealed a dark, disturbing fact:
“It’s something that has affected me through my whole career and my uncles during their careers” the 33 year-old recalled.
“They’ll tell you stories about bullets through the post, chants, monkey noises and bananas being thrown at them” He added, speaking about his uncles (Roberts is the nephew of Cyrille Regis, Dave Regis and Otis Roberts-all three were professional footballers and played in England before retiring). It is terrible to think that such a celebrated professional suffered discrimination from his counterparts on the field for years and decided to do nothing about it.
With Roberts’ words in mind, it looks like a major problem still persists. If it is true that Racism like this could still be going unnoticed on the pitch, have we really moved on from primitive times, when racism in the game was rife?
In the 1970s and 1980s, players making it professional in the English game were greeted with monkey noises and bananas from fans. Back then, it was standard for things like this to happen; Clubs like Liverpool and Everton remained all white for most of the 80s, as more and more black players entered the game. In fact, when John Barnes joined Liverpool in 1987, it was such a major talking point that a book was written about it: Out of his Skin by Dave Hill.
The fact that we have moved on (and there’s no doubt that we have progressed in many areas, thankfully it is far from on the same scale as it was) is what makes the Suarez and Terry cases all the more shocking and emotionally provoking.
Undoubtedly, many questions will be raised of the F.A if issues continue to persist and as a result, the whole reputation of English football will take a large dent, and rightly so. What player would want to come to ‘the best league in the world’ to be racially abused?
So what is being done to fight it? As we know, the Prime Minister David Cameron has demanded an Anti-Racism plan for English football. Thankfully, he highlighted a major issue that needs combating-children are imitating the actions seen on the pitch and it must be stopped. Lord Herman Ousley, the chairman of the Kick It Out campaign has called upon Sepp Blatter to join him in his campaign to rid English football of Racism.
This came after Blatters’ widely-criticised comments about racist comments on the field should be solved with players “shaking hands”. Kick It Out was established in 1993 under the name of Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football. Earlier that year, the black teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered in London; it was racially motivated and acted as an eye-opener to views on Racism in English football, especially as Stephen, a football fan, was chatting about the beautiful game seconds before he was stabbed.
Kick It Out is proof that despite the inhumane, brutal crime, something good has come from Stephen’s murder as it has had positive long term effects on footballing societies as the campaign ‘challenges discrimination’. Internationally, Kick It Out is heavily involved in the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) and is supported by UEFA and FIFA.
I therefore sincerely hope that all of you will agree with me when I say that it is imperative for the English game that anti-racist campaigns persist and as much as possible is done to rid the Premier and Football league of thoughtless discrimination. This can only result in positives for all of us as football fans not just in England, but around the world.
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