Society must share blame for football’s racist outbursts
Abuse seen and heard at grounds stems, in part, from the world beyond the game and media coverage, and reflects political currents
While everyone was accusing everyone else, the media outlet challenged by Raheem Sterling in his Instagram post went to Beckenham in south-east London to find the man accused of being racially abusive at Chelsea on Sunday. There, they found a Mr Wing, who displayed a predictable mix of contrition and self-pity.
Colin Wing, 60, told Mailonline that what he actually called Sterling was a “f------ Manc c---” – rather than a “f------ black c---” – an unlikely thing to yell at someone born in Jamaica and raised in London. Wing was described as a “former BT manager” who now feels “deeply ashamed” of his language and claims he has lost his (unspecified) job and season ticket, complaining: “Everybody’s got what they wanted.”
If only. The truth is that nobody is getting what they wanted. The allegation against Wing is not proven, racists are probably not newly enlightened, the media is not diverse, and, in football, black people are not convinced anything will change.
Much of the discussion has featured a torrent of pent-up frustration, with white sportswriters being accused of not doing enough (and not being qualified to talk about racism in the first place), and some media organisations being called institutionally biased against black, Asian and minority ethnic people, both in their coverage and their hiring policies.
Tyrone Mings, of Bournemouth, took direct action by changing his mind about appearing on Talksport, which has given air time to some good and some bad opinions on the racism to which black footballers have been subjected.
True, only one black journalist was sent by a newspaper to cover the World Cup in Russia, and I happened to be with him in a bar in St Petersburg when we decided it would be wise to leave, to avoid early signs of hostility towards him from a couple of local drunks.
That reporter came home from a country that many black family members of England players were worried about visiting to find