Now throw Bulgaria out of Euros. Anything less will be yet another victory for the racists
WHEN footballers are de filed by racism, when other people try to make them feel in human and like animals and like inferior beings, the pattern is often the same. Initially, there is outrage. Maybe there are even the remnants of shock, although it is happening so often these days that shock feels like a luxury we should no longer be allowed.
And then you know what’s next. Things go a bit quiet. We cover up the memories with a shroud and let dust settle on the shroud and make it grey. And then we start finding excuses not to punish racism. We have got really rather good at this part. In fact, we have become expert at it. Not just UEFA, who have been pathetically ineffectual in this area for a long time.
John Barnes will say a black man in inner city England without an education has it worse. And he may be right. And people who hate footballers and their wealth will applaud. But then maybe a poor Bangladeshi worker toiling in unbearable heat in Qatar and working in the kafala system has it worse still. So what? One kind of injustice should never be used to excuse another. Others will ask ‘who are we to cast the first stone?’ And they may be right, too. For we are no angels.
Yom ping around European capitals armed with our new B rex it-inspired braggadocio, colonising streets and city squares with our red and white flags, singing songs about German bombers in Dortmund, reviving No Surrender to the IRA, the old marching tune of Combat 18.
Then there’s the idea that racism is a societal problem, not a football problem. And in a way that is right, too. But I’m not quite sure what point it proves. Isn’t the point that we should tackle racism where it manifests itself? In America, there is little racism in sports grounds. But white policemen seem to shoot an awful lot of black civilians.
There is always someone who tells players that protest against injustice would be wrong. They’re the same people who would tell Colin Kaepernick not to take a knee and John Carlos and Tommie Smith not to give a black power salute and Muhammad Ali not to say that he ‘ ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong’. The authorities are afraid of protest. They know its power. So t hey always t ry to promote reasons to stay quiet.
Let’s get one thing straight: our game against Bulgaria last week should have been abandoned and awarded to England. The three-step protocol is a joke. The referee should have taken the teams off. It should be his responsibility to do t he r i ght t hi ng. Faili ng t hat, England should have walked off.
It is the one thing that would force UEFA into real action. If England had walked off, there would be no more empty words. I guarantee you Bulgaria would have been thrown out of the Euros by now. Banned. Shamed. End of story. Bye bye until you can be better.
So the first myth we need to explode is another trope parroted by those who want us to do as little as possible. It’s the one that says
human filth hooting monkey noises at England’s black players last Monday night in Sofia and the scum making Nazi salutes in the stands would have won if Gareth Southgate’s team had walked off. They would not have won. They would have lost.
If England had walked off, two things would have happened: our players would have attracted world wide acclaim for finally saying that enough is enough and that they will not take this any more. They would have been hailed as pioneers.
And UEFA would have been plunged into crisis. Suddenly, they would have had to confront the reality of the ugliness growing fast around football again. Suddenly, they would have had to accept that paltry fines and partial stadium closures and other slaps on the wrist are simply not doing it. They would have had to do something radical. Like ban Bulgaria from international competition. That’s what Hristo Stoichkov, their former captain, suggested before he broke down in tears on television last week. It took guts for him to say that and he’s right. It’s time for UEFA to stop fiddling at the margins and take some real action.
They did it to English clubs after the Heysel disaster and we deserved it. England were on the brink of being chucked out of Euro 2000 after our hooligan fans ran amok in Belgium as well. We would have deserved that too. Now it’s time to do the same to countries and clubs that allow racism to spew from their stadiums.
These are not petty infractions. This is an evil and it should be treated as such. This is a return to a dark age. This is subjecting footballers to things they should never have to be subjected to and which are a basic affront to any idea of civilised society. And if UEFA won’t tackle it willingly, they should be forced to do it.
A walk-off would do that. Haringey Borough left the pitch yesterday after it appeared their Cameroon goalkeeper was abused by a visiting Yeovil fan during their FA Cup match. But it will need action by a high-profile nation like Germany or Holland or France or England.
UEFA would do the right thing then, only if out of shame. And fear. And then it would be up to Bulgaria, in this instance, to decide whether it wanted to confront its issues or submit to along exile from international football. Its shot at education. It’s choice.
And yes, let’s not forget ourselves. This isn’t just about Bulgaria. We should all be subject to the same rules and it is time the penalties for racist abuse got a whole lot more severe. If they don’t, if we don’t show the collective will to fight it, if we do not instil in associations or clubs the fear of heavy penalties for permitting this scourge, then it will fester and grow.
Millwall, for instance, were fined just £10,000 by the FA at the start of this season for another racism offence. It was not the first time and yet we chose to give them a paltry fine and issue them with ‘a 12-point action plan’. Next time it happens, Mill wall should be deducted points. The next time after that, relegated.
The same when England fans cause trouble abroad. It is only a minority. But the minority cause trouble so often, it is becoming an issue again. Any idea that after Bulgaria we occupy a moral high ground is a joke.
Fines for racism are pathetic. Manchester City had to pay more for being a few seconds late on to the pitch. Besiktas had to pay more for ‘insufficient organisation’ when a cat wandered on to the pitch during their Champions League game with Bayern Munich in 2018.
S ow he nU E FA president Aleksander Ceferin talks about the admirable stance in fighting racism, that’s all it is: talk. We’ll soon find out if Bulgaria are to be thrown out of Euro 2020, which should be the minimum punishment. Anything less would be another victory for the apologists.