Racism in Football

[tomav84]

5 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

I think a lot of it will be kids and bot accounts personally, that’s not to say that I don’t think there’s a problem with racism in society because I do, and there clearly is.

But there is a difference between a 12 year old kid posting racist crap and a 35 year old doing the same, so if it is kids let’s identify and educate them.

And if there are bot accounts sowing malicious discontent let’s start tracking them to see who’s doing it (or just to target which branch of Russian/Chinese government is sponsoring it).

thing is even when they get busted nowt happens to them. ian wright shared some screenshots of messages sent to him and the lad was actually tracked down and arrested. he avoided a criminal record.

https://www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world-news/teen-who-sent-arsenal-legend-19766444

Quote

Arsenal legend Ian Wright is 'disappointed' after the teenager who racially abused him on social media was spared a criminal conviction.

 

[maqroll]

Manchester United women now getting racially abused. It seems like Man Utd players get more abuse than players from other clubs, is it just because of the prominence of the club or something else?

[Vive_La_Villa]

Yan Dhanda got racially abused this time after the Swansea Man City game. Let’s face it Racism has never gone away in football. It’s the people’s game which unfortunately means the fans will include the worst in our society. But these fans realised there would be consequences of racism so reigned it over the years.

Looks like with social media they know they have a platform to get away with it.  

Edited February 13, 2021 by Vive_La_Villa

[Follyfoot]

5 hours ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Yan Dhanda got racially abused this time after the Swansea Man City game. Let’s face it Racism has never gone away in football. It’s the people’s game which unfortunately means the fans will include the worst in our society. But these fans realised there would be consequences of racism so reigned it over the years.

Looks like with social media they know they have a platform to get away with it.  

100% agree, the platform needs to be closed to this vile hatred somehow.  

[Zatman]

James McClean has wrote to the FA asking why they are taking action now when he is claining anti-Irish abuse he received on a weekky basis. 

[Zatman]

Its an absolute disgrace, I am no fan of McClean I think he can get himself in trouble with stupid comments but the abuse he takes is certainly uncalled for and now his family. Something should have been done 10 years ago but it was kept quiet by the FA, PFA and Premier League

amazingly Matic never get abuse for not wearing a poppy

[Zatman]

Zaha said he will no longer be taking the knee

[Keyblade]

10 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Zaha said he will no longer be taking the knee

Quote

Wilfried Zaha has become the first Premier League footballer to say he will not take a knee because he believes the protest is no longer sufficient.

The Crystal Palace forward instead pledged to “stand tall” when he returns after injury. “I feel like taking a knee is degrading,” he told the FT Business of Football conference. “Growing up my parents just let me know that I should just be proud to be black, no matter what, and I just think we should stand tall.

Swansea's Dhanda takes aim at 'selfish' and 'silent' Facebook after racism
Read more
“I think the meaning behind the whole thing is becoming something that we just do now. That’s not enough. I’m not going to take the knee.”

At the start of this season the Premier League distanced itself from Black Lives Matter by replacing its logo with No Room for Racism on shirts. Zaha said: “I’m not going to wear Black Lives Matter on the back of my shirt because it feels like it’s a target.”

Zaha, who revealed his mother has made him pay 10% of his money to charity since he was 16, also suggested the racism black players are continuing to suffer online suggested the protests had not made a difference.

“We are trying to say we are equal but these things are not working,” he said. “Unless there’s change, don’t ask me about it. Unless action is going to happen I don’t want to hear about it.”

Can't say I disagree with him. Afraid this will open a window of opportunity for racists though unfortunately. The PL and FA as always completely limp in all their initiatives bar how they can make the most money for broadcasters. Suddenly they're very efficient in that regard.

[villa4europe]

I agree too, will be interesting to see what this "stand tall" will be

Palace getting out in to the local community, in to schools and around the yoof and trying to actively influence them, working with the doubtless numurous charities and community organisations and making things better even with a couple of square miles of their catchment area, the 10% of his wages thing is great, 10% of the players time would make a huge difference 

Worth more than a knee

[ender4]

On 13/02/2021 at 09:39, Zatman said:

James McClean has wrote to the FA asking why they are taking action now when he is claining anti-Irish abuse he received on a weekky basis. 

So because he was racially abused in the past, we shouldn't now take action against new racial abuse?      

 

[Zatman]

34 minutes ago, ender4 said:

So because he was racially abused in the past, we shouldn't now take action against new racial abuse?      

 

He gets abused every week and still is receiving horror abuse on social media.

Pretty sure he wants to know why it took so long

[ender4]

1 minute ago, Zatman said:

He gets abused every week and still is receiving horror abuse on social media.

Pretty sure he wants to know why it took so long

Ohh i didn't realise he's getting abuse now     (i misread as he used to get abuse 10 years ago)

[Stevo985]

14 hours ago, Keyblade said:

Can't say I disagree with him. Afraid this will open a window of opportunity for racists though unfortunately. The PL and FA as always completely limp in all their initiatives bar how they can make the most money for broadcasters. Suddenly they're very efficient in that regard.

No doubt this will be used by gammons to justify why they thought taking the knee was wrong in the first place

[Dale]

As a gesture, I think it has run its time, but it does worry me that the stopping of it will be seen as some sort of victory. 

What I want to see, is more people involved in the game challenging platforms, government, Premier League, FA etc. on actions that they're taking and doing so on a perpetual basis. Bringing it up even when it's not in the news.

It was always more powerful in the NFL because it was during the anthem, I'd support taking the knee during anthem in England matches on that basis (or turning back, whatever)...

The Six Nations pissed me right off without the show of a united front there.

[sne]

Mentioned it in the Weekend Football thread last week that I thought it had run it's course and was time to give it up. And the same day Brentford announced they would stop.

Fully agreed with Zaha. 

They should absolutely keep on working and focusing on the fight against racism, but this particular gesture has run it's course.

[Zatman]

Its very similar with the Petrov applause, i think its hard to end something like this without looking bad in the process

[Mark Albrighton]

I think it’ll be a shame for it to end before crowds are back.

I think it would be massively positive if the crowds applauded while the players were taking the knee. Would send a proper message that the supporters are fully behind kicking out racism in the game.

On the other hand, if the players took the knee and were jeered by supporters to a noteworthy level - ie hundreds or thousands booing (there is always going to be one or two idiots) then it would give the clubs of those supporters something to consider along with the authorities. Make them actually face the issue. 

Because I know what will happen. This will disappear while crowds are away, with a vague promise of “doing more” (with nowhere near the level of attention) then there will be flashpoint in a year’s time that concerns racism and it’ll be said “well we need to do more”.

Rinse and repeat.

[Keyblade]

7 hours ago, villa4europe said:

I agree too, will be interesting to see what this "stand tall" will be

Hopefully it's this:

[sne]

Red Star Belgrade has apologized to Zlatan Ibrahimovic for the racial and ethnic abuse directed at him from their fans at the game yesterday in the Europa League.

 

[a m ole]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56124688

Why are there so few BAME players in English women's football?

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On Tuesday, England women play Northern Ireland in their first game for almost 12 months - a match introducing the new interim manager Hege Riise.

Notably, however - with Demi Stokes injured and Nikita Parris unable to travel because of Covid-19 restrictions - there will be only one non-white player in the squad of 21. Bristol City forward Ebony Salmon has been handed her first senior England call-up, after the initial all-white squad was announced.

Compared with the men's game, the pool of BAME players to choose from in women's football is a lot smaller.

 

Spoiler

At the Women's World Cup in 2019, Stokes and Parris were the only non-white players in the England squad. In the men's World Cup squad the year before, there were 13 players of colour - celebrated as "representing modern, multicultural England".

While women's football has grown exponentially in the past few years, the number of black and mixed-race players in an England squad for a major tournament has decreased from six in 2007 to two in 2019.

The statistics on BAME representation in English football can be difficult to pin down. Indeed, the football authorities faced criticism last year for not monitoring the number of elite players in the men's or women's games. 

But Manchester City and England forward Raheem Sterling, speaking to the BBC's Newsnight programme last year about the lack of BAME coaches and leaders in English football, indicated that "there's something like 500 players in the Premier League and a third of them are black". 

That figure was backed up when Paul Elliott, chairman of the FA's inclusion advisory board, spoke to the BBC around the same time.

It is estimated, though, that the proportion of BAME players in the Women's Super League is lower - at between 10-15% BAME players in the WSL.

"Right now, to be honest, it's not inclusive enough. And it's not diverse enough, and we know it," said Baroness Sue Campbell, the Football Association's director of women's football.

Accessibility & opportunity 

Aston Villa's Anita Asante, 35, who has 71 England caps, says one reason there are so few BAME players in elite women's football is inaccessibility. 

"It's getting more difficult to get the right accessibility for disadvantaged groups of young girls, especially in inner cities," she told BBC Sport.

"When you're seeing so few [BAME players] making it to the elite level you have to question if the system is really working. Does it need reviewing to find where the gaps are?"

Kay Cossington, the FA's head of women's player development and talent, told She Kicks magazine in 2020 that "inclusivity was compromised as we attempted to turn more professional. We had 52 centres of excellence; that was too many for the depth of talent at the time". 

With 52 centres reduced to 30 - and with many of the centres that remained based in rural areas - a lot of the BAME players from big cities were travelling two or three hours to get to training. Millwall, for example, had trained in Lewisham and Southwark, but moved to Bromley where facilities were better. 

Adekite Fatuga-Dada is Watford's longest-serving women's player

When Watford forward Adekite Fatuga-Dada was 16, she was invited to an England Under-19s camp at St George's Park in Staffordshire, 144 miles from London. But her mum, a single parent, was working on the day of the camp, so Fatuga-Dada had no way of getting there.

Her mum asked the FA if they could help her daughter - then playing for Arsenal's Under-17s - with transportation. The FA told her to ask one of the Arsenal Women first-team players for a lift to the camp. 

"I didn't feel comfortable to go and ask an Arsenal Ladies player who I've idolised growing up, if I could jump in the car with them," Fatuga-Dada, now 24, told BBC Sport.

She added: "I was so young and [my mum] didn't want me to travel on my own, which is understandable. But I don't think it's fair to ask every girl to do that. There should be more help.

"It was a very exciting time for me, I was on cloud nine as a young player. But I never went [to the camp] and I haven't been back with England since."

What is the FA doing about it? 

The England squad after the 2019 Women's World Cup third place play-off defeat to Sweden

Baroness Sue Campbell says the FA wouldn't let what happened to Fatuga-Dada occur now. 

"We'd find a way now," the FA's director of women's football told BBC Sport.

"When I first came into the FA five years ago, there were very few people focused on the women's game. Now we have somebody in every division of the football association with a key leading focus on the women's game."

Campbell says one challenge is not having the resources of the men's game. But she says that now women's football has the "volume through participation", the FA needs to redesign the pathway for its emerging talent. 

The FA is also working with the EFL Trust to carry out more talent identification work in inner-city areas and has provided scholarships for players who need financial support. It says it is already seeing more ethnic diversity in the England youth teams. 

The teenage drop-off

The FA also has an Asian Women's Advisory Group, and through its Wildcats programmefor girls aged 5-11, it has trained coaches from the communities it is targeting - so that girls have relatable role models. There is also a new teenage equivalent programme.

But when the drop-off rate from sport for teenage girls is so high anyway, what is being done to make sure all the FA's work with youth is translating into the elite level of football?

"We've developed a programme for clubs, which is about helping clubs think about what it means to be girl-friendly and inclusive," Campbell said.

"It doesn't just mean you run a women's team. It means the whole ambience of who greets them, what the changing rooms look like, what is going to help them come along, feel that they belong, and that they're part of it.

"If you go that first time and it feels uncomfortable, most girls don't have the confidence to go back again." 

So is it just a case of this work trickling down and waiting for the impact to be made? Or does the problem run deeper than that? 

The perception of women's football, post Sampson 

Eniola Aluko spoke to the BBC about Sampson claims in August

There are other issues for women's football that are unrelated to the talent pathway. In 2017, the FA apologised to England players Eniola Aluko and Drew Spence for racially discriminatory remarks made by sacked England women's boss Mark Sampson. It was a high-profile case that made headlines for more than a year.

Villa's Asante, who was playing in the squad at the time, said: "For young girls from similar backgrounds watching that, they would have probably been disheartened to have seen the negative impact it had on those individuals and also the actions at the time of the squad.

"That perception or lack of support for the person experiencing a form of discrimination or racism to the nation publicly, is not going to have a positive image or impact to young people. 

"That's why it's important that the FA and us as players talk about these experiences, to try to improve the system so that it can be better for the next generation." 

• 'We have to do more' - WSL players

Asante says that since the global resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, her team-mates have reflected on the situation.

"I've had players that I know reach out to me personally and apologise," she said. "Not because they did something directly bad, but because they didn't reach out or they didn't support myself and those players at the time."

'A white space' and stereotypes

Fatuga-Dada says another problem for young players of colour is stereotypes. 

"It is very much a white space," she told BBC Sport. 

"A lot of black players that I know would be told the reason why they weren't getting picked for squads is because of things like attitude. I guess now you look at it and say that's a stereotype.

"It was tough - we were kids, and you can't argue with the manager or say 'I don't have a bad attitude, I'm not what you think I am'.

"It was so easy to discourage certain players from playing, because they were just told 'this is what you are'. 

"If there are not more black, Asian or minority players at a grassroots level, we can't expect them at the top. If they do have the talent, why are we not trying to encourage them to reach those heights?" 

If you can't see it, you can't be it 

Asante says the lack of representation - both on the team and behind the scenes - is another challenge, especially as the number of BAME players has decreased in the past few years.

"From leadership to organisation management, the lack of representation is a barrier," she said.

"People don't have that connection necessarily to the game, because they don't see people that look like them or have their shared lived experience."

Asante remembers England legend Rachel Yankey leading a training session when she was a teenager at Arsenal, and says it made a huge difference having someone she could relate to.

She said: "She comes from a similar background - and all of these connections that we could build made me feel like this was a space that I really wanted to be in."

This article confused me a little. I’m obviously fully behind equality, but I’m struggling to see what this article is finding issue in. 1 of 21 of the England squad is BAME? That’s roughly the same as the demographic of the general public. The proportion of BAME players in the WSL is 1 in over 7.

Surely the answer to the article is that there isn’t and they’re doing a great job of representation?

 

What am I missing here?

Edited February 19, 2021 by a m ole