By Daphne Liddle
THE FIGHT against racism in sport has come a long way since
the launch of the “Let’s kick racism out of football” campaign in 1993 and
there have been many advances and achievements since then. But it would be a
serious mistake to imagine that the problem is solved and that racism in sport
has been defeated.
This was the message
of a symposium organised in London
on 4th July by lawyer and poet Dave Neita and independent development
consultant Michelle Moore. It brought together Professor Ben Carrington, an
internationally respected authority on the intersections of race, gender, class
and nation within sport and a panel of experienced experts in the field to
debate the issue: “Does sport promote or challenge racism?” in front of a large
audience of people, most with experience and concern about sport and combating
racism.
The panel included
Paul Elliott CBE, a black footballer who
made his professional debut at Charlton Athletic Football Club in 1980 and went
on to play for Luton and Aston Villa and Celtic, where
he won the Scottish Footballer of the Year award in 1989. Later he moved to Chelsea
where he became the club’s first black captain. Paul is a trustee for Kick It
Out and has been awarded an MBE and then a CBE
for services to equality and diversity in the game.
Also on the panel was
Tasha Danvers, a British Olympic bronze medallist in the 400 metres hurdles at
the 2008 Beijing Olympics. She is now engaged in coaching and is a 2012 Olympic
Games ambassador.
Keme Nzerem is an
award-winning journalist employed by Channel Four News as a news anchor and
sports reporter. He reported on the election of Barack Obama in 2008. He also
reported from the Gulf Coast
when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans
and visited Guantanamo Bay
to investigate the legal rights of the detainees.
Michelle Moore has
held a range of academic, vocational, pastoral and advisory posts and
specialises in the areas of primary and secondary education, developing a
schools engagement strategy for the Black Cultural Archives. She has also
worked for Charlton Athletic Football Club and developed community sports
education programmes.
Dave Neita is known
as the People’s Lawyer and is also a poet. He has specialised in representing
excluded individuals and marginalised groups, including thousands of South
African asbestos miners seeking compensation.
Paul Mortimer began
his football career with Farnborough Town
in 1986 and joined Charlton Athletic the following year. He later played for
Aston Villa, Crystal Palace
and Bristol City.
Since then he has worked as a coach at Arsenal, Brentford and Wimbledon.
He has now returned to Charlton Athletic where he coaches the club’s women’s
team and is an ambassador for Show Racism the Red Card.
Also on the panel was
Bart Oojen, policy officer in the Sport Unit for the European Commission since
2009 and has a long record of fighting violence, discrimination and intolerance
as well as supporting social inclusion, equal opportunities and dual careers.
David Neita opened
the proceedings by introducing the panel and the topic. He said we cannot
assume the battle against racism in sport has been won – “we should take racism
as seriously as this Government takes terrorism”.
Ben Carrington began
his key-note address posing the question: “Does sport promote or challenge
racism?” and went on to say that although we have come a very long way between
1912 and 2012 sport does not automatically deliver positive outcomes.
He cited the raised
fist Black Power salute given by John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968
Olympics to draw attention to inequality and poverty in Black communities in
the United States.
The gesture certainly raised the issue of racism faced by Black people in sport
and in general but it cost Carlos and Smith dearly in the short term as their
sporting careers were halted for some years. But in the long term their names
are now in the history books.
Carrington also
refuted the idea, now being promoted, that the descendants of black slaves are
some sort of sporting super race because of the adversity in simply surviving
faced by their ancestors. “This is again defining black people by their
physicality: ‘They are naturally good at sport’, implying they are not so hot
at mental ability. And does it mean that athletes like Paula Radcliffe are
really black?”
“There’s a lot of
misinformation and mistaken assumptions about racism and sport going round,” he
said, “At the moment there’s a conflict between nationalism and cosmopolitanism
arising from the recent UEFA Cup finals. The media in Britain
were promoting the idea that Britain
is way ahead of some other European countries – Poland
and Ukraine for
example – in combating racism and that we should be teaching the rest of the
world.
“But we’ve still got
serious problems in our own backyard.”
And he cited the
incident in October last year, when Liverpool were playing at home to
Manchester United, Liverpool player Luis Suárez was accused of racially abusing
Patrice Evra and the Football Association opened up an investigation into the
incident. According to Evra's testimony, Suárez said in Spanish that he had
earlier kicked Evra "because you are black", said "I don't speak
to blacks" and used the word "negro" five times in total as they
argued. Suárez had claimed that his use of the word “negro” to address Evra was
conciliatory and friendly, but the FA rejected this claim as being
"unsustainable and simply incredible given that the players were engaged
in an acrimonious argument”.
On 16th November the
FA announced it would charge Suárez with "abusive and/or insulting words
and/or behaviour contrary to FA rules", including "a reference to the
ethnic origin and/or colour and/or race of Patrice Evra."
Liverpool FC released
a statement announcing Suárez would plead innocent, adding that they would
"remain fully supportive" of him. On 20th December, the FA concluded
a seven-day hearing, handing Suárez an eight-match ban and a £40,000 fine for
racially abusing Evra.
More disturbing than
Suárez's remarks was the statement put out by Liverpool FC, which claimed the
club was "very surprised and disappointed" at the ban and cited
Suárez's mixed race family background, as well as his involvement with
multicultural projects.
Some Liverpool
players displayed their support for Suárez, wearing T-shirts with his name. But
the club opted not to appeal against the ban.
On 11th February 2012 Liverpool
played Manchester United at Old Trafford, which was Suárez' and Evra's first
meeting since Suárez's ban. During the traditional pre-game handshakes, Suárez
avoided shaking Evra's hand, leading to Evra grabbing Suárez's arm. Suárez
ignored Evra and continued down the line causing Evra to throw his arms up in
protest and Rio Ferdinand, whose brother Anton was the victim of a separate
racial abuse incident with Chelsea
captain John Terry, to avoid shaking Suárez's hand.
Liverpool
manager Kenny Dalglish continued to defend Suárez's provocative behaviour.
This led to Suárez
and Dalglish facing fierce press condemnation. In a statement released by
Liverpool Managing Director Ian Ayre, Liverpool also
condemned Suárez, stating that Suárez had misled the club by claiming before
the game that he would shake Evra's hand. The next day, Liverpool's
club owners, and shirt sponsor, Standard Chartered, forced both Suárez and
Dalglish to issue formal apologies for their conduct.
Ben Carrington also
mentioned the incident between John Terry and Anton Ferdinand, which is
currently before the courts. And he cited the remarks by FIFA boss Sepp Blatter
that the problem of racism in sport had been “overstated” and that it could be
resolved simply with a friendly handshake at the end of a match.
This remark provoked
outrage, including from David Beckham who declared Blatter’s attitude as
“unacceptable” – showing that the consensus position on racism in football in
Britain and other western European countries has moved a long way since the
1970s and 80s, when it was common for racists to boo black players, make monkey
noises and throw bananas on to the pitch. Now most top west European clubs have
a high proportion of black players. But there are still very few black managers
or football club board members.
But also now racism
is taking different, less overt forms. The Daily Mail is talking about “plastic
British athletes”, implying that young athletes are migrating from poorer
countries to gain British citizenship in order to have a chance of competing in
the Olympics. The racism in this sort of article is disguised but the Mail made
no complaint a couple of decades ago when Zola Budd’s application for British
citizenship was fast forwarded so that the white South African runner could
side-step the sporting boycott of Apartheid South Africa.
Following Ben
Carrington’s speech Keme Nzerem questioned other members of the panel about
their experiences.
Paul Elliot told the
meeting of his early experiences in sport while a teenager. Trainers had
assumed he would not enjoy swimming simply because he was black and that he
would also feel the cold more than white players. When he first joined Charlton
Athletic, a club at the forefront of combating racism in football, another
player had joked about him eating “coonflakes”.
“As a player, growing
up was very difficult, we were told not to be too sensitive, to rise above it
all and grin and bear it. So I kept quiet in a way that I would not do now.”
But he also spoke of
the power of football to engage with the general population and change
attitudes as almost nothing else can – with giant signs saying: “Let’s Kick
Racism Out of Football” the public mood has changed and overt racism is no
longer acceptable. Now footballers can stand up and speak up and say: “I am not
prepared to put up with this,” and walk off the pitch if necessary and be backed
up by their white colleagues.
“Nowadays racists are
changing their approach; they claim to have black relatives or friends and this
means they couldn’t possibly be racist,” he said.
He also warned:
“There is still a lot of racism out there in the youth teams and the amateur
sports. We must fight it at that level.”
Paul Mortimer also
spoke of people who claim not to be racists – who will say one thing to your
face but something very different behind your back.
He related how he had
tried to explain racism to his young son. “Then one day I joined a golf club,
as many professional footballers do, and took him with me on my first visit.
When we walked in it was just like the scene in the westerns where the villain
walks into the saloon and suddenly everything goes quiet. My son was puzzled;
he asked me: ‘is this because of us?’
“I told him: ‘Yes.
But look at their faces, they’re all looking at the floor, they’re embarrassed
by their racism.’ We walked through the room and no one would look at us but my
son started laughing because they were scared to look at us. We went straight
through and had a game of golf and there was no problem.”
Mortimer spoke of his
work going into schools and educating the police in race awareness.
Tasha Danvers agreed
that racist attitudes now are more difficult to pin down and many racists are
in denial they but they are still there. One contributor from the floor gave an
example of a recent race where the white girl who had come second was
immediately surrounded by press and cameras congratulating her, while the black
girl who had won the race was totally ignored. Black athletes are more likely
to be passed over while their white colleagues will be given more chances and
opportunities. And when they do triumph there is a suggestion that the success
comes more easily for them because of their genetic ancestry and they have not
had to try so hard.
The topic of hidden
racist attitudes came up in debate many times. “Big Ron” Atkinson was mentioned
and his ill-judged remark, describing a player as “what is known in the trade
as a lazy nigger” when he thought the microphone had been turned off after an
interview. The worst part about it was that the remark implied this description
was commonplace behind the scenes “in the trade”.
And again the topic
of Suárez's racist remarks and ban came up and the ripple effect: that the
manager had backed the racist behaviour of the player, the club had backed both
and the fans had backed the club – involving hundreds in the tacit support of
racism.
It is vitally
important to challenge incidents of racism wherever they occur and fines and
bans can be an effective deterrent. But in the long run it is most important to
engage those who make racist remarks and get across to them the harm it does
and how it feels to be on the receiving end.
Black people do not
have to conform to any stereotype to be accepted. Mohammed Ali’s quote: “I do
not have to be what you expect me to be,” was mentioned.
Paul Elliot compared
the situation to Fidel Castro still wearing his military uniform decades after
the Cuban revolution: “It is because the struggle is not over. The struggle
goes on. It is the same here fighting racism. We have come a very long way but
there is still a lot more to do. The struggle goes on.”
It was not mentioned
in the meeting but Charlton Athletic is still playing a leading role against
racist discrimination. Last year the club appointed Chris Powell, a young black
former player as its new manager. And the team hardly dropped a point all
season and won promotion as a result with over 100 points.
