Regret? FA are just as guilty as Beardsley after taking racism so lightly
IN case you were in any doubt as to whether Peter Beardsley was a racist or not, out came the familiar card.
Some of my best friends are black. “Peter and his legal advisers have b been inundated with support… from fellow professionals of the highest repute, including John Barnes, Kevin Keegan, Les Ferdinand and Andrew Cole,” said a statement from his lawyers.
OK, we get your drift.
Over in Italy, a TV pundit who was sacked for saying the only way to stop Romelu Lukaku was to give “him 10 bananas to eat” was also insisting he was not a racist.
“My partner is black… I have two little black nieces,” said Luciano Passirani.
Oh, I see, all fine then.
It is familiar territory.
Remember when Ron Atkinson lost his ITV job after his racist comments about Marcel Desailly were aired around the world?
He was not a racist, he said.
Just look at all those black players I had in my teams, was the gist of his defence.
In Beardsley’s case, he can actually brandish official confirmation, if you want to call it that.
An independent FA regulatory commission said: “We are satisfied that Mr Beardsley is not a racist in the sense of being ill- disposed to persons on grounds of their race or ethnicity.”
That might well be the case, but why does the commission need to make that judgment? How do they really know?
The commission’s job was to decide if Beardsley had said to one or more black players of African origin at Go Ape in October 2017: “You should be used to that.”
The commission’s job was to decide if Beardsley had questioned the legitimacy of the age of one or more persons of black African origin. The
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hi commission’s job was to decide if Beardsley had called a player of black African origin a “monkey” during a game of head tennis.
The commission decided he had. In all three instances. And that should have been that, with only the punishment to hand out. But, even in handing out the punishment, the commission – for some reason – could not help itself.
“We regret the outcome that we have felt compelled to reach in this case,” their concluding statement read.
“Mr Beardsley is a towering figure in football and his footballing reputation is beyond question.”
And, unwittingly, the commission – made up of retired judge Lord Dyson, Gareth Farrelly and Tony Agana – had underlined a persistent problem.
Professional football somehow sees
i itself as some sort of special workplace. That Beardsley is a “towering figure in football” should not matter a jot.
That his “footballing reputation is beyond question” doesn’t matter a jot. And why the “regret”?
“It is particularly important at a time when racism in football is prevalent that remarks of the kind made by Mr Beardsley are punished severely,” continued the panel’s reasoning.
And there are plenty who believe the eight-month ban from any footballing activity is a severe punishment.
It certainly wouldn’t have surprised many had it been more lenient.
But he should have been banned for longer.
Making an example of people who racially abuse others is a fundamental weapon in the battle against racism.
Maybe because of his “footballing reputation”, maybe because he is a “towering figure in football”, maybe because he is most definitely not – according to the commission itself – a racist, Beardsley got off lightly.