Parents hurl race abuse at kids’ footie games
SHOCKED Ahmed Maravia With Abdul and children KIDS as young as seven are being racially abused by parents at football matches.
At one under-nines game a parent offered a banana to a child while another was told they should be off blowing things up. Other
The Bake Off winner once even believed she would drown when other pupils shoved her head down the toilet.
And 34-year-old Nadiya revealed her panic attacks are so bad she fears they could kill her. The TV chef opens up to a therapist for the first time in a searingly honest BBC documentary about her anxiety, which is so bad she often cannot even get out of bed.
Speaking about the bullying when she was 10, Nadiya tells cognitive behavioural therapist Professor Paul Salkovskis she was picked on “for being dark”. She adds: “I was bullied up until I left primary school. They would wait in corners and pull chunks of my hair out, until I was bleeding.
“They slammed my fingers in doors and all of my nails fell out, because they were black and blue.
“It was my last year of school and they flushed my head down the toilet. I still have the memory of the water going up my nose and thinking, ‘If they don’t pull me up now, I am going to drown’. They eventually stopped and I had my first ever panic attack. That memory is going to stay with me for ever. It’s got to a point in my life where that’s all I am now. I’m just the panic, I’m just the anxiety and I don’t want to be that any more.
“I might seem happy and relaxed but it’s not how I feel. That feeling
It’s got to a point in my life where I’m just the panic, just the anxiety
kids were left in tears by adults making monkey noises.
Ahmed Maravia, who runs 13 teams for The Community Football Academy in Leicester, said: “It happens week in, week out. We’ve had children wanting to give up NADIYA ON HOW BULLYING HAS AFFECTED ADULT LIFE playing. One child told me he felt sad and lonely because of the racism.” Mr Maravia is vicechairman of the The Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Football Forum which has begun collecting examples of racism in football. The Football Association urges any player subjected to discriminatory abuse to immediately tell the referee.
It added: 0“The referee will alert the club’s safety officer and relevant authorities.”