OUR CHIEF SPORTS WRITER TAKES AIM AT ALL THE BIG ISSUES
■ (right)
THERE was a time when England would dread the West Indies coming to these shores to play cricket.
Who could blame them, too? Facing Malcolm Marshall, Joel Garner, Colin Croft, Michael Holding and Andy Roberts must have been about as much fun as
GARETH SOUTHGATE tried to swerve the question like Lionel Messi weaving through a panicstricken defence.
Is the Football Association institutionally racist?
The question was prompted by Raheem Sterling’s call for more black people in positions of power at the FA.
In attempting to answer an awkward enquiry, it has to be said, the England manager insisted his employers were attempting to do more and were engaging with a lot of people on the issue in a bid to increase their diversity.
The FA are supposed to be the guardians of our game, after all, but statistics suggest little is changing.
Around five per cent of leadership roles in the organisation are filled by people from BAME backgrounds.
Southgate struck a chord when he spoke of the “powerful messages” about racism we have all seen and heard in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.
He said: “There are some powerful messages and a lot of those will be uncomfortable for white people in particular, but they are critical voices to be heard.
“In the end it is important to hear from those black voices, but it is important to hear from white voices as well because, ultimately, they are going to be the people in the positions to make decisions and can open up opportunities and drinking treacle. But fast forward to 2020 and the Windies have been welcomed with open arms.
So they should be as well, because it is brave and sporting of them to make the effort to come for a three-test series considering the world’s ongoing battle against still make a difference. We are the ones who have to be educated.”
There’s no denying the importance of what Lewis Hamilton, Coco Gauff, Michael Jordan and Sterling have had to say about racism around the world.
In fact, if you drew up a list of the 10 most influential and powerful sportspeople of all time, it would mainly consist of black athletes such as Jordan, Pele, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, Serena Williams, Hamilton, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson and Jim Brown.
Yet the people calling for change are not the ones who need to change. The problem doesn’t lie with the victims of discrimination but, like Southgate said, with the perpetrators.
Airbrushing history, in terms of ripping down statues of slave traders and renaming streets, is all well and good, but it’s the future that matters most, not the past.
What impact will a discarded monument have on the Chelsea fan who abused Sterling at Stamford Bridge? This person needs to be educated. So do the cretins who aimed racist chants at England players in Bulgaria.
But what hope is there of this happening when we hear that one of the most powerful organisations in sport plans to ban athletes from ‘taking a knee’ at next summer’s Olympics in Tokyo?
FIFA, UEFA, the FA and the NFL
Covid-19. The 25-man West Indies squad, led by captain Jason Holder (right), arrived at Manchester Airport this week wearing masks.
And they will stay in quarantine at Old Trafford for two weeks as they prepare for the first game in Southampton next have all removed sanctions for those who decide to make such a peaceful protest.
Yet the International Olympic Committee insists any form of such protest in Japan will not be tolerated – and that the ‘guidelines’ set out in January remain in place.
So the same committee that tried to silence black American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos by banning them from the next Olympics following the duo’s black-gloved fist protest in Mexico City in 1968, is doing it again more than half a century later.
But, then again, why should we be surprised, given the shameful history of the organisation.
IOC president Thomas Bach is allowed to have a close relationship with Russian president Vladimir Putin when it comes to sporting politics, but those athletes who make the Games special cannot ‘take a knee’ to express what they believe in.
When Bach took over in 2013, he uttered the immortal line, “The role of the IOC president is being the conductor of the worldwide orchestra of the members, members who have so many strengths you have to allow them to play the instrument they prefer and get them in harmony”.
On the evidence of this week, there won’t be much ‘harmony’ in Tokyo. There won’t be much change until people like Bach, all white and privileged, are educated into changing themselves. month. All players and staff left the Caribbean with a clean bill of health and will be regularly tested.
The group deserves a lot of praise for their commitment to the cause and for helping us salvage something from a summer of sporting ruin in the wake of the virus.