Manchester City player Yaya Toure claimed to the referee, Ovidiu Hategan, he had been receiving racial abuse from some Moscow fans, an allegation the Russian club strongly deny. CSKA, to make matters worse, have accused Toure he 'dreamt' the monkey noises. Toure has said if black players keep receiving the same treatment in Russia all African countries should boycott the 2018 World Cup - a threat his international teammates (Ivory Coast) have agreed to do.
1,700 miles away from Moscow back in England, I think we are combating racism successfully. I have never heard racist chanting at any football match I have attended. Credit has to go to the F.A and effective campaigns such as 'Lets Kick Racism Out of Football'.
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| T-Shirts footballers wear before games to support the campaign. Picture courtesy of kickitout.org |
I am sure there will be people raising their eyebrows reading that statement but I am merely questioning why the F.A feel the need to oppose one prejudice yet think it's okay to ignore others?
Homophobia was in the spotlight a few weeks ago when troublemaker Joey Barton, of all people, wanted to make a stance against homophobia in football by wearing rainbow laces on his boots. Barton encouraged other professional footballers to do this, to be fair, a lot of footballers did. Despite all the media attention not one professional footballer has come out as gay or bi-sexual, cricketers and rugby players have come out as gay in the past year, is football behind other sports when it comes to discrimination?
In 2009 England player Sol Campbell was subject to homophobic chants by a minority of Portsmouth fans in a Premier League game, the player isn't even gay! Sol Campbell is black and fans choose to chant homophobic abuse at the player - does this mean racism has been tackled so fans choose to discriminate in other ways?
Sexism; another taboo that the F.A has choose not to impede on. In a sport which is widely dominated by men how can football not be sexist?
Referees and linespersons get a lot of abuse from fans no matter if they get a decision right or wrong. Sian Massey one of the top linespersons in the English Football League has undoubtedly received a lot of sexist comments throughout her time running the line in football games. Yet statistically she has got one of the best success rates (correct offside decisions) in England.
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| Sian Massey one of the best linespersons in the country - yet she has received criticism for being a female. Picture courtesy of guardian.com |
When a high profile pundit like Andy Gray humiliates a lineswoman with bigoted comments the public reacts; some would be outraged others find it funny and mimic the jokes Andy Gray mentioned. Sky (the channel Andy Gray worked for whilst making the comments) quickly reacted and sacked Gray for ill-mannered comments. The ex-Luton Town manager Mike Newell criticised another female official saying: "This is not park football. What are women doing here?" Yet the F.A only reacted by fining Newell, we have found out throughout racism punishments that fining individuals and teams doesn't stop it. There remains no big campaigns to stop sexism in football.
The sooner the F.A bring in other campaigns to stop all discrimination in football the better for everyone involved in the beautiful game. Sepp Blatter has come out and said there will be points deductions for any club that are racist. How about point deductions for any club that are homophobic or sexist as well? The sooner that happens the sooner football can catch up with the real world in which everyone is treated as equal whether they be black, white, female, male, gay or straight.
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