Clive Caines Cultural Contributor
Anyone following the Football Association’s handling of the John Terry/Anton Ferdinand case must be struck by the fact that football still has many issues to resolve.
At surface level it is easy to suggest that modern football is truly international, especially as every major football league has players from around the world: FIFA (Federation International Football Association) published figures in 2008 indicating that the English, Spanish, Italian, German and French leagues have a total of 42.4% foreign players.
This global exchange of talent is a reflection of social progress but with it issues of racism, sexism and homophobia are brought more sharply into focus.
It must be said that football isn’t unique in regards to being a sport that has social issues to deal with. Lewis Hamilton’s 2008 experiences in Spain show that Formula 1 has fans that are not above using race to get at a competitor. The ‘Pride House’ row currently besetting the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics is an example of a sport dealing poorly with social issues; Pride House was to be a venue for gay and lesbian competitors.
The sport has ducked support via a social issue campaign by leaving the matter to a local judge, Svetlana Mordovina, to rule on. In deciding against the registering of ‘Pride House’ as a venue Mordovina explained her decision by saying that “fighting homophobia is immoral.”
In contrast to the Winter Olympics handling of the Sochi 2014 situation formula 1’s governing body, the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile), tackled the Spanish fan’s treatment of Lewis Hamilton head on.
The FIA threatened to withdraw from Spain if there was a repeat of the racist jeering, abusive gesturing and insults; for this response the FIA were commended by ‘Kick it Out’ the football body set up to tackle racism. Kick it Out’s director Piara Powar is on record as saying of the FIA response “The statement from the FIA did everything it needed to do.
Anton Ferdinand. Courtesy guardian.co.uk
We need governing bodies to take a hard-line stance in cases such as these… Although the greatest success in ridding football of racism has come from self-policing by fans, the FIA’s response in this matter was a huge help in driving the message home that racism will not be tolerated in F1.”
Timely and adequate responses from football’s governing bodies have been a matter of concern when it comes to football dealing with social issues. To return to the John Terry case, one of the talking points about this case is the length of time it has taken the English FA to rule on the matter.
Fair enough, once the Terry/Ferdinand case became judicial, the law courts would have their say first but they concluded in July. Eleven months after the event and the FA have only just decided that Terry was guilty.
Lord Triesman. Courtesy dailymail.co.uk
In the time that it took for the FA to come to a judgement John Terry was able to play out a full season for Chelsea and go onto play for England in the European championships.
Consider this with the paltry sums of money that various footballing nations have been fined for their fans racist behaviour, such as Uefa fining the Russian and Spanish FA’s £40,000 each. The message here seems to be that football doesn’t see itself as needing to take social issues too seriously.
In the UK the response from black players is to question the value of showing their support for Kick it Out’s annual week of action. Former FA chairman Lord Triesman was so concerned about the FA’s handling of the Terry/Ferdinand case that he said, “Terry would have been barred from appearing for his country as soon as the charge was made, had I still been at the FA helm… I take a fairly hard view and I think we should have zero tolerance.”
Whatever you might say about football’s handling of issues to do with race it pales in comparison when looking at other issues. There has yet to be a major case of sexism or homophobia in football yet a recent cross party committee report suggests that homophobia is likely to be a big problem in UK football grounds. The report states that, “25 per cent of fans think that football is homophobic while 10 per cent think that football is racist… 14 per cent of match attendees questioned had reported hearing homophobic abuse.”
All of this begs the question, why when other sports have their problems does
Kick it Out’s Piara Powar. Photo courtesy farenet.org
football need to lead on dealing with social issues. First up let me say that football for me has always been about the field of dreams so why shouldn’t anyone with the right amount of talent feel a universal welcome to take part.
Secondly, football at present is by far the biggest sport on the planet and yet it hasn’t always respected those who have lavished time and attention on it, the tragic events at Hillsborough being a case in point, but surely football can see an economic imperative in truly respecting its fans and players.
