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REPRESENTATION OF ISSUES WITHIN FOOTBALL: RACISMMATTHEW SMITHRemember the golden years of the 90's; Gascoigne scoring the wonder goal in Euro 96 and celebrating with the dentist chair water squirting, Cantona returning from his ban in 1997- winning Manchester Utd the double after his infamous kung-fu kick; the Invincibles of Arsenal who went unbeaten for the whole season; and ‘99 was capped of the glory years of English football when Man United won the treble. However, what do we have now?We have racism, homophobia and young men earning millions of pounds in front of fans paying thousands of pounds to watch these ‘primadonnas’. Then, the dreaded agents/foreign owners demanding extortionate amounts of money, as well as the England football team who have a lack of depth to call upon and a crazy FIFA president who cannot relinquish power and a so-called fair play rule which has no hope of succeeding. Football is never "coming home" and is on cause for self-destruction.Arguably, the 70's and 80's were worse for violence, racism and of course, the period of the Hillsborough disaster. True, however, the dark days have returned where fans are risking their lives to watch a game. Football is no longer a game, arguably a multi-billion pounds industry and at worst somewhere mindless idiots can vent their anger and hatred without fear of prosecution. Even Sunday morning football referees are abused by players/spectators. In the last 18 months FIFA/UEFA have not cracked down on this behaviour: in South America riot police need to attend every game and are attacked from fans; but UK fans are "hooligans". In the Ukraine, an English fan was stabbed, others attacked for supporting their team. Travel to Kiev any other time and there would be no trouble if you were English. We have also seen the racism in Italy and Serbia increase, as well as homophobia in general. What have UEFA/FIFA done? The answer is: nothing. From Mr Blatter or Platini, there has been no comment about the situation in South America, Italy and Spain. Also, Qatar has been awarded the 2022 where homosexuality is still illegal and the facilities are unbearable for fans and players. The choice of Qatar is still questionable.Then, the transfer window which means that players (employees of companies) can only move from one club within a 2 month period in the summer and a 1 month period in January. No other EU business can do this so how can football get away with this? Yes, if an employee moves to a rival company in "normal" life then they get put on gardening leave; so why not in football? We could return to the traditional open transfer market (incidentally a legal requirement within the EU) and when a club transfers a player then they can negotiate how much gardening leave is required. UEFA can still stop the player from participating in certain cup competitions, but it should be a free market for the movement of employees.The transfer window helps to increase the value of players, so that agents can make money and both clubs and players can demand extortionate fees/wages. Economics dictate that reducing the demand of supply (i.e. players) and increasing demand (by clubs and fans) then the only result is an increase in price. Then we have the "fair-play rule" to ensure clubs don't spend over their means. The word "fair" seems a bit ironic for Platini's baby; how can smaller clubs compete with larger clubs if their spending has to match their income. Also how does this work with clubs like Chelsea, Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG and Man City? These clubs have multi-billionaire owners and could easily find a way round this.However, smaller clubs will have trouble with the rule due to lack of income. Consider clubs like Everton, who settle the books according to the rule but lose the best players. Has anyone noticed that PSG and Monaco have not been criticised by Platini for spending millions and not obeying the rule? How can smaller clubs obey the fair-play rule and get into the Premier League without taking a risk? It doesn't always work and we have seen what has happened to Portsmouth and Leeds United, but the rule cannot be controlled properly. UEFA needs to rethink this rule.Finally, we have the Premier League that appear to control English football and ignore the FA, but treat fans as money making machines. Why have two providers of Premier League football for television? The original idea was that not all Premier League teams were pay-per-view (i.e. some Premier League games on terrestrial TV). However, now customers must pay for both Sky Sports and BT Sports if they wish to watch every televised Premier League game. This is fundamentally wrong as the customers need access to either Sky TV or cable TV to subscribe to either package. However, in Spain or the Middle East all games are televised on one channel. Why must the Premier League be so greedy and now we have to pay twice to watch all the games? If one has cable or Sky then one can subscribe to Sky, so why not allow Sky to broadcast 90% of the games and then allow terrestrial channels to broadcast the other 10% at no fee to the viewer? So why has the Premier League kept this two provider rule in place? The ‘Said and Done’ section in The Observer is always an enlightening and entertaining read on football at its most corrupt, hypocritical and absurd. The latest updates on managerial sackings and the bizarre goings-on in South America – the wild west of football – can always be trusted upon to induce laughter, while Sepp Blatter and his FIFA cronies are near-constant objects of lampooning.One of the more eye-opening segments of the weekly column deals with racism in football, and last week’s entries made for particularly sobering reading. We learnt that FIFA’s stance on Russia’s record with racism when inspectors were assessing their World Cup bid in 2010 was that it was “not an operational matter” and therefore “not a factor” in the process, despite the fact that fans of Russian clubs have been seen flying flags emblazoned with slogans such as ‘Happy Holocaust’ and ‘Monkey go home’; in Bulgaria, meanwhile, there was news of Levski Sofia fans unveiling a banner decorated with the UEFA logo and the words ‘Say Yes to Racism’, while Rapid Bucharest coach Marian Rada had the following to say after Rapid fans aimed racist chants and threw a banana at Concordia Chianjna’s Wellington, which reduced the player to tears:“Was he crying? Maybe Wellington should have cried because he didn’t score … Maybe a banana just slipped out of someone’s hand in the stands.”Pretty depressing stuff then, and evidence – as if it was really needed – that football is stuck in the dark ages and that its problems with racism remain significant and unresolved.Or is it? Jose Mourinho begs to differ. When questioned on the possible introduction of the Rooney Rule in English football – the successful NFL statute which requires teams to interview at least one candidate from an ethnic minority background for roles in head coaching – the Chelsea boss argued that there is “no racism in football”, that “if you are good, you prove that you deserve the job” and that “football is not stupid to close the doors to top people. If you are top, you are top”.The point that Mourinho was trying to get across – that managers should be appointed on merit, not on the colour of their skin – may have been lost in translation. However, his claim that there is no racism in football was striking, irresponsible (given his position as the manager of a leading Premier League club) and more than anything, wildly inaccurate.The anti-racism Kick It Out campaign, though far from perfect, already faces significant challenges to getting its voice heard in English football. Its headquarters are in a fourth-floor office above a pizza shop in Clerkenwell, and in the multi-billion pound Premier League industry, it receives funding of less than ?300,000 a year. It could therefore do without men like Mourinho – whose sound-bites are pounced upon by the media – undermining its cause by saying that racism is not an issue in the game, when it clearly is.Perhaps we are being unfair on Mourinho. He may have been shirking from the uncomfortable truth that his club captain John Terry was found guilty of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand three years ago, or he may, as has already been noted, have merely chosen the wrong words, and that what he really meant was that merit, not skin colour, is the only thing that employers care about. To an extent, Mourinho is right – in an ideal world, merit should be the sole factor in determining the suitability of a candidate to a managerial role. However the world of football is far from ideal, and there is an undeniable and visible lack of black managers in the English game compared to the number of black players. Implementation of a footballing equivalent of the Rooney Rule would not harm the chances of other candidates nor the values of meritocracy; it would simply ensure that aspiring coaches from minority backgrounds are at least given consideration.In a crowded room at a conference in London the head of FIFA's anti-racism task-force Jeffrey Webb made a comment this week that he knew would cause a stir. "Racism in English football is not hidden," he said "instead it is right in your face."His remarks were not unexpected. 25 per cent of footballers in the English leagues are from a black or ethnic minority background. But only two of the 92 league clubs have black managers. One of them is Keith Curle; the newly-appointed manager of Carlisle United. Curle was a successful manager with a proven track record. But nonetheless it took him two years to find another job after leaving his last club Notts County back in 2012.Probably the biggest issue I have got is it how do you prove it? People say there is a hidden agenda. Well if there is people are not telling me because I’m mixed race. Sol Campbell is one of the game's best-known figures. As a player he reached the highest level winning 75 caps for England. But despite this he has not managed at any level. Instead he splits his time between occasional coaching sessions with youth team players and helping to run an interior design business with his wife from his home in Northumberland.He believes the game has serious issues to address. He says the lack of black managers in the game means the pressure on the ones who are appointed to perform is much higher than their white counterparts. But it's not just an institutional problem. It's a problem on the terraces too. Show Racism the Red Card is a national organisation which has its headquarters on Tyneside.It travels the country going into schools to educate youngsters and try and make them think.The approach to tackling racism is not an easy one. The head of the PFA Gordon Taylor has called for the introduction of the so-called Rooney Rule. This exists in the NFL in America where black and ethnic minority candidates must be considered for interview for a vacant post. Meanwhile a group of academics from Sunderland University has just completed research into racism directed to sportsmen online. Their findings are that social media provides many people with a cloak of anonymity to racially abuse sportsmen and women. They believe that unless punishments are more severe this is an issue that will continue. If somebody was to say something racist in the football stadium or in the stands then the likelihood is they would be reported and ejected. If they do that on social media the vast overwhelming majority of cases go unpunished. So there are weak penalties in place and if there are weak penalties in place racism is likely to persist on social media.Football has a long way to go in its war against racism, and compared to the attitudes of certain fans and individuals in other countries, English football is a progressive utopia of racial harmony. Nevertheless, the game needs prominent figures such as Mourinho to highlight, not downplay the issue, otherwise we may find ourselves fighting a losing battle.Carlos Kameni – Cameroon – West African - Espanyol – in the strongest football league in the World - Even his own fans showered him with racial slurs - Bananas, language and abuse - “I’m not a monkey, I’m a human”Marc Zoro – 18 years old – Ivory Coast to Italy - Played for Messina – every game, subject to racism - Game vs. Inter Milan – had enough – picked up ball, and threatened to leave pitch - “I couldn’t take it anymore” - Fans held up “PEANUTS AND BANANAS ARE THE PAY FOR YOUR INFAMY”Samuel Eto’o – Found himself in similar situation - Playing for Barcelona, in Zaragoza in one of Spain’s openly racist cities - Every touch of the ball = monkey chants - “No mas” = “No more”Thierry Henry – One of the best players who has ever lived - Even though he was elite, he still got monkey chants - Still got spat on, when doing a throw-in, or a corner kickGOOGLE BOOKSFootball's Dark Side: Corruption, Homophobia, Violence and Racism in the Beautiful GameEuropean Football in Black and White: Tackling Racism in FootballThe Changing Face of Football: Racism, Identity and Multiculture in the English GameWEBSITES ................
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