Did the FA Miss An Opportunity To Make A Positive Step?
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DID THE FA MISS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A POSITIVE STEP?
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PerspectivesWords By: Alex ConseyIllustrated By: Tom Shotton
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DID THE FA MISS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A POSITIVE STEP?
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Perspectives
Words By: Alex Consey
Illustrated By: Tom Shotton
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An Englishman an Egyptian and a Kenyan … It may sound like the start of a politically incorrect joke but it’s actually the nationalities of the three scorers in a heated top of the table fixture in the world renowned Premier League. I watched the match between Liverpool and Spurs in my University Union bar, the bar was relatively full for a Sunday evening and passions were flaring. There was a clear division in that bar, there was a tangible split. Hostility would be a slight exaggeration but there was antagonism and enmity in the air. The excitement of the game which ended 2:2 in thrilling fashion only drove the divide. One thing, however, was that this division was temporary and was definitely not on racial lines, there was no permanent resentment and the opposition was mainly amongst friends over a pint. I mention this because we are in the run up to the FIFA World Cup, being held in Russia. In recent months, race and football have yet again collided in the headlines on a number of different issues. There was the premature death of former black West Brom and England player, Cyrille Regis, Spartak Moscow referring to their players as melting chocolate, young Rhian Brewster’s article describing the racial abuse he has received as a young player, and the recent alleged incident involving Jay Rodriguez and Gaetan Bong, among many other sport-race stories in the news.
We only have to look across the Atlantic to affirm that racism in sport isn’t exclusive to football. Colin Kaepernick, for example, has found it difficult to get a position on any NFL team: he says as a result of his peaceful non-violent protest against his Government, although there is a theory that he is past his sell-by date. Add this to the recent incident where two radio presenters commenting on a high school basketball match said that the players with Hispanic names should, and I quote, “as Trump would say, go back where they came from.” Funnily enough, there being a lot of ‘fake news’ these days especially surrounding the POTUS, as he would be all to happy to tweet you himself, this comment was not out of context. The presenter, talking about school aged children, presumably believed some of the players were illegal “dreamers”, and so literally meant what he said. But attempts shouldn’t be made to turn our own racial issues into a comparative exercise against the US, that enduring example of different races struggling to live peacefully together from the nations birth. The point is racism in sport isn’t a dying issue, either here or there, it transcends borders. The question raised by the World Cup is whether the football loving public in the UK is willing to connive in order to enjoy what should be the beautiful game.Given Russia’s record and reputation there is an argument that the FA may have missed out on an opportunity to boycott the Russian World Cup. I’m not talking about avoiding the inevitable embarrassment of a group stage exit after a shock draw to Panama and a 1 – nil defeat to Tunisia. I refer to the boycotting of the World Cup in Russia in order to express, as a nation, our distaste for a State that does not seem to want to abide by modern morals, one (but not the only) aspect of which is state sponsored racism. You don’t need to be a post modernist or a leftists activist to find that Russia is reluctant to engage in what is seen as common decency
To go back to that record, the list of discrepancies is rather long and a few should be highlighted. As mentioned, we have the Spartak Moscow incident, which was followed by an uncomfortable-to-watch clip of the victimised players with their arms around the defender Georgi Dzhikiya, who apparently took the video, and wrote the caption saying that ‘there is no racism at Spartak.’ This is just factually inaccurate. I’ve tried to look at it in different ways but ‘Look how chocolate melts in the sun’ can’t be really be misinterpreted. Once might be careless but twice? It was actually one of the current Russian Premier League champion’s young players who abused Rhian Brewster’s, reportedly saying “suck my dick, you ni**er, you negro."
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"DON’T FEEL THE NEED TO PROVE YOURSELF TO ANYONE. YOU KNOW WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND YOU DON’T NEED TO JUSTIFY THAT."
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Add this to the fact that Russian State officials have overtly denounced homosexuality on multiple occasions. If you watched the BBC documentary hosted by Reggie Yates called Extreme Russia you’ll see an official representative of the State Duma called Deputy Vitaly Milonov calling homosexual people “faggots”. The same official was also featured on Stephen Fry’s Homosexuality in Russia spouting the same state sponsored intolerance. If you want an example of this type of intolerance when Russia is hosting an international sporting event then Gus Kenworthy, a gay man and member of the USA’s freestyle skiing team, said in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics they actually told possible LGBT competing Olympians to ‘not show it’ due to homosexuality being unaccepted locally. Racism and homophobia are conceptually different things but they go together uncannily, they are manifestations of intolerance, hatred and bigotry. Of course, the Country cannot openly object to players showing their race but it begs the question, would they?
Statistically speaking exactly 50% of the most current England squad playing Brazil on the 14th November last year were black and 40% of all recent call ups to the squad are black. Yet the FA are happy to send our players to a country where racism has most definitely not been kicked out. Of course, it can be pointed out that we live in a glass house. The right wingers would say that the gross over-representation of black players is itself (anti-white or anti-Asian) racism, but it is not so. It is, of course, purely on merit. Indeed, it is another example of racism because the life choices of black youths are so constrained. Further as recent news has shown racism hasn’t been kicked out of our own football leagues. Although, as Rhian Brewster mentioned in his interview to the Guardian, he had “never experienced anything of this nature from another English player” he is just lucky. Any English false pride to which I was tempted went away when I remembered Chelsea fans being filmed kicking off a black Metro user in Paris, and that the organisation Kick it Out has reported a 59% increase in incidents of discrimination in the top four leagues.Its all well and good saying that the World Cup is supposed to be a coming together of international communities to celebrate the sport we collectively enjoy and rejoice in, but does there come a point, when it is in a place like Russia, that something has to be said or done? As George Orwell had it, maybe it is simply a collection of different states attempting to better one another and all the nasty side effects of competition should be taken as collateral. So I would proscribe that the FA do take this chance to boycott the World Cup, not just because of the racism or the homophobia but also because Russia is a totalitarian state which disapproves of our way of life. Boycotting the World Cup is the morally right thing to do. But, there is no real possibility of this happening, we as a nation love the game too much and we, I include myself in this, crave the day our boys bring something home. Call me a hypocrite but I would be absolutely devastated if we did pull out. We all want to be in that Union bar on a Sunday evening watching England battle it out, as the chant goes ‘we just don’t want to go to work,’ and its time we ended 50 years hurt.My hypocrisy aside, surely we cannot idly stand by as we watch racism, hatred and bigotry manifest in one of the most popular global sports? With the number of children that follow the great game it should be guiding and steering these kids as opposed to swaying them. Rather, football should be used to promote tolerance, respect and community. The tragic reality is that racism in sports is rampant, and showing no real sign of disappearing, keep your eyes peeled for more features documenting racism in sport over the coming weeks.Peace.[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built="1" admin_label="Section" custom_padding="20px||0px|" disabled_on="off|off|off" global_module="30533"][et_pb_row admin_label="row" global_parent="30533" make_fullwidth="on" custom_padding="0px|0px|0px|0px" parallax_method_1="off"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" global_parent="30533" header_text_color="#ffffff" header_letter_spacing="19px" text_letter_spacing="1px" custom_margin="15px|||"]
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