It seems football simply can’t remove its ugliest stain. Last night we witnessed the disgusting scenes at Anfield where it seemed racist remarks were directed at Oldham’s young full-back Tom Adeyemi, who was clearly distraught by whatever was said. This comes as talksport presenter Stan Collymore has reported racist remarks directed towards him on twitter. Alarmingly these aren’t the first incidents to do with racism we have seen this season, all culminating to put football back into the spotlight on an issue that won’t go away.
Earlier this season we saw the controversy of John Terry abusing Anton Ferdinand when QPR met Chelsea at Loftus Road, who has now been formerly charged by the Metropolitan Police. In addition to this, we have also witnessed other events at Anfield where Liverpool’s Luis Suarez abused Manchester United’s Patrice Evra, which has seen the Uruguayan receive in my opinion a deserved eight match ban.
However, what is most disturbing I feel is the response from the club’s involved. Straight after Chelsea’s game Andre Villas-Boas made the fatal mistake of backing his captain, which was reiterated by the club. It is clear that Terry did make remarks towards Ferdinand, evident from the charges brought by the police. Plus by backing Terry are Chelsea inadvertently not condemning racism?
Liverpool also have done themselves no favours in their response to the Suarez incident. The terrible decision to warm-up in Suarez shirts before their game against Wigan apparently to show solidarity according to Kenny Dalglish has dramatically backfired. Suarez has been charged with making these comments, therefore, similarly to Chelsea, Liverpool by not disciplining Suarez internally are also not condemning racism.
Suarez’s eight match ban from the FA in my opinion should be applauded. It is clear that the FA wants to remove this terrible thorn in English football’s side and they have rightly shown no leniency. However, ultimately the problem lies with the clubs. No matter how many bans or fines the FA give, if the clubs do not also come down hard on such incidents then football will never be able to remove racism.
If anything, I believe the FA should also inflict sanctions on the involved player’s club in order to force them to condemn what has happened. If they don’t, then as we have seen the fans will see it as okay to say such things to the opposition, and we will all have to watch players such as young Tom Adeyemi be deeply hurt by such disgusting remarks.
Even more worryingly, if youngsters in grass-roots football see it as okay to be racist, then the ramifications for football and society as a whole could be devastating.
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