Racism

In November 2011, FIFA president Sepp Blatter

in an interview with Al Jazeera was asked if he thought racism was

a big problem in the sport.

• The president of the sport's world governing body replied: "During a match you may make a movement to somebody or hurt somebody or you may say something to somebody who is not exactly looking like you, but at the end of the match it is forgotten.

• "Racism is when there are spectators or movements of discrimination outside the field of play. But on the field of play I deny there is racism."

• “Maybe one of the players has a word or a gesture which is not the correct one, but the one who is effected by that, he should say that ‘this is a game’.

• "If it happens in a league then they have to make this investigation and then they come to a solution. “

• "And what would that be? They'd bring the two people together and say, shake hands."

• What is Racism?

• Racism is when someone thinks different skin color or religious beliefs make some people better than others.

• Racists bully people who are different to them. They do this by name calling or violence.

• Racism in association football is the abuse of players, officials and fans because of their skin color, nationality, religion or ethnicity. Some may be targeted (also) because of their association with an opposing team. However, there have been instances of individuals being targeted by their own fans.

• The relationship between ‘race’ and football takes a number of forms. It has long been the case that a number of fans have used Saturday afternoons at football matches to air their racial prejudices but it is now recognised that this minority of racist fans is only part of the problem. What is also important is how members of minority groups can become involved in football as players, coaches or spectators, the interest they take in football and whether in certain areas they feel excluded.

Is Sepp Blatter right? Is there really no racism in football nowadays?Do racist utterance among footballers are caused by outburst of anger during the game?

The Football Association are currently dealing with two incidents where a player has been accused of racially abusing an opponent - Chelsea's John Terry and Liverpool's Luis Suárez, both of whom deny any wrongdoing.

Racism Football Sport: Real Literature Review• The phenomenon of racism in football is not as old as the conflict of racism in society in general, but neither is it as recent as the current worrying

situation in which some to believe (Back et al.1998). Back et al. (1998) identified that football grounds have provided one of the largest public arenas in which racism can be openly expressed. It is against this background that the phenonomenon of racism in football has led to wide spread discussion during the past couple of decades within the media, amongst policy makers and in the wider football community.

• Recently, there has been a increase in the study of sport, racism and ethnicity (Jarvie 1991). Numerous factors which will be explained have undoubtedly contributed to fuel this interest. However, a couple of considerations appear to have been of great importance. Firstly, black sportsmen and sportswomen throughout the world have experienced remarkable 'successes' in international sport (Jarvie 1991).

• According to Mercer, (1994) and Shohat and Stam, 1994) this may be due to the fact that apparently each positive stereotype has a negative result. Therefore, as black men and women have come to excel in various sports, people of a non ethnic background have needed an explanation for why what seemed to be an inferior race can outperform a superior one. This may be one of many factors which may have encouraged resentment for their success which in turn could have lead to abuse in a racist nature.

• Secondly, a disproportionately high level of athletic participation by diverse ethnic minority cultures has often been used by 'liberal minded' sports enthusiasts as an excuse to indicate that there is no racism in these arenas. These authors use these examples to try and illustrate that there is no form or racism in certain sports, however authors such as (Williams 1992, 1994; Turner 1990; Holland 1992a, 1992b, 1995) have proven otherwise.

• Bairner (1996) and Guha (1997) who are thought to be sporting enthusiasts argue the assumption that sport itself is relatively free from racism and that sport, more than any other sphere of society, enjoys a certain degree of democratization and equality according to Jarvie (1991). However, “such accounts of sport which make general inferences about the changing nature of racial relations in society based on a consideration of athletic participation rates” (Jarvie, 1991, p. 3) are misleading due to their ignorance of the broader issues of power and domination within society.

• Although there has been a sizable interest of studies in the area of race and sport in the UK (Chappell et al. 1996; Norris & Jones,1998) focusing primarily on the issues of “stacking” and “centrality” is useful evidence in a descriptive term. However, in terms of quantifiable data indicating that there is a decrease racism in sport, it would be very naïve to gain assumptions that their was a decrease in racism in sport from these sources. Maguire (1991) has therefore recognised that there is a need for greater qualitative as well as quantitative research into the area in the “hope that a more rounded picture may be produced” (p. 100).

• Although some qualitative research involving racism in English football has been carried out (Cashmore,1982; Howe, 1976; Maguire, 1991), these studies only concentrated on the experiences of top level Black players. This has been highlights to identify there is very little data on the experiences of racism on lower league footballers. Therefore, this is a worthy study because not only will it explore the different avenues of racism, but will also give a broader picture as to the experiences of racism in lower league footballers. It is believed that non-league football, which consists of the middle section of the football hierarchy in the United Kingdom, would prove to be a grounded place for such a study for a variety of reasons. First, the realities of race relations could well be more real at lower levels of the game than in the polished environment of professional sport (Hoberman, 1997) due to its less cosmopolitan nature (Maguire, 1991).

• The need to investigate below the top level of sport has been echoed by Horne (1996),who stated that focusing on the lower level of soccer culture may be beneficial in understanding the differing forms of attachment to, and identification with, the game for Black players, as these everyday levels could well be “important sites for consolidating and possibly transforming racist attitudes” (p. 61). He further stated that investigations at different levels of soccer are needed if involvement of ethnic minorities in sport and in the wider community are to be better understood and appreciated Racism is undoubtedly a sensitive issue and it is important to be clear on what racism is when conducting the research.

“Due to outburst of anger footballers on the field do Racist Acts”

HYPOTHESIS

Drawings from Josiah C. Nott and George Giddon's Indigenous races of the earth (1857), which suggested black people ranked between white people and chimpanzees in terms of intelligence.

• Content analysis: The technique of unobstrusive methods, which is systematic coding and objective recording of data. This includes economic and political documents, newspapers, television tapes, songs and so on. • Survey research: The researcher gathers data using interviews, questionnaires, or similar feedback from a set of people sampled from a particular population of interest. Survey items from an interview or questionnaire may be open-ended or closed-ended. Data from surveys is usually analyzed statistically on a computer.

• On 12 February 2011, Roberto Carlos signed a contract with Russian Premier League club Anzhi Mahachkala. In March, during a game away at Zenit Saint-Petersburg, a Banana was held near Carlos by one of the fans as the footballer was taking part in a flag-raising ceremony. In June, in a match away at Kryla Sovetov Samara, Roberto Carlos received a pass from the goalkeeper and was about to pass it when a banana was thrown on to the pitch, landing nearby. The 38-year-old Brazilian picked it up and threw it by the sidelines, walking off the field before the final whistle and raising two fingers at the stands, indicating this was the second such incident since March.

• Atletico football club were given the punishment, along with a fine of around £120,000, for incidents during their Champions League home match with Marseille on Oct 1.

• Those incidents included outbreaks of violence between Marseille fans and Spanish police after the latter removed a banner that featured a prohibited symbol, as well as accusations from Marseille officials and players that they had been racially abused by the Atletico fans.

• The defender of Atletico Michel Salgado said: "You can't punish an entire fan base for the racist behaviour of a few people in the crowd. I think they've been too drastic in their decision. There's racism in every stadium due to a minority of the crowd. It has nothing to do with sport. This punishment sets a precedent. We'll have to wait to see what Uefa does whenever this happens again; if every stadium has to be shut down because of this, many games will be played behind closed doors."

Date Whites Blacks Indians Pak/Ban Chinese ESN % 1970 .68 2.33 .32

IQ 1984 100 88 98 Unemployed % 1991 11 25 13 29 10 Men in prison

% 1995 .15 .98 .11 .11 .06

Adults married % 1994 60 39 72 74 62

Single teenaged mothers

% 1994 6 21 1 11

How the Races Adjust In 1976 Powell observed that blacks in Britain had a high rate of crime and were particularly

involved in mugging, a word which, he said, was “used by one part of the divided society to describe its treatment at the hands of the other.” Apart from this, he did not have much to say about the degree to which different groups of immigrants have adjusted to life in Britain. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that blacks, Indians, Chinese and Pakistanis together with Bangladeshis have adjusted quite differently. Statistics for some of the major studies on this issue are summarized in the table on this page.

Does racism exist in football?

Yes (80%)

No (20%)

Answers of people

POLL RESULTS Is it finally time to boot out FIFA president Blatter?

Yes (89%)

No (11%)

Racism still exists on football field and is becoming the big problem in our society