Opinion on Racism

For several years, racism has been a huge issue in not only sport, but also the rest of the world. However, after recent events, this societal issue has become known. Nathan Phillips, Joe Spencer, Matthew Grimshaw and myself, Georgia Cook, have started a radio show based around societal issues in football and the how it is effecting the people around the sport. 

In our first show we decided to do the topic of racism, this is something that needs to be addressed as soon as possible because a change needs to be made in my opinion. However, the real question is the FA doing enough to stop racism in football? In my opinion the answer is no. There is so much more we could be doing to stop the outbreaks of racism we see in football games but do we really understand the prices these people have to pay when they create racist content?  Consequences of racism is not promoted enough, many of us do not know the severity of some of the things we may say as a joke and how it can badly effect the person. This is another thing we discussed, for a bad tackle or a straight red card we are aware of the consequences to follow however with something that may be deemed as a secondary issue as in the fact it can’t be dealt with first hand. Our radio station was made to highlight these problems that so many footballers are facing on a day to day basis that we may be unaware of, this is key into the change of society making sure that this is spoken about as much as possible. In my opinion, I believe that racism has not been addressed in so long because people do not want people to lose respect for them or damage their title for coming forward and talking about this. However, what some people don’t realise is the opposite effect this would cause; it would have made people feel like they belong in society, which sometimes they may not feel. Enough is not being done in my opinion the kick it our campaign has helped to give players an idea of where to report it and where they have a safe place to report to.