Racism in football

[ad hoc]

Thought we had a thread, but can;t remember what it was called and didn't find it in the first 6 pages of this forum. Anyway, the FA have decided that despite repeated instances of using racist language, John Yems is not a racist

https://twitter.com/AzeemRafiq30/status/1615576900792877058

[DCI Harry Batt]

The very most important thing is to make sure that you can never be accused of calling someone a racist.

[EIM]

Look, if a load of old, white men say he isn't racist, then that's good enough for me

[Nefertiti2]

Saying racist things (which require a content warning because they are so racist) isn't the act of "a conscious racist" apparently says the FA

Excellent comment by Tony Burnett

Kick It Out CEO Tony Burnett speaking to Sky Sports News:

"I don't know John Yems, but unless the FA are channelling some sort of superpower that I'm not aware of, they have no jurisdiction and they're actually not qualified to assess whether any individual is a racist or not. So how you can reach a conclusion like that in a case like this is completely beyond me.

"What this says to me in the way this report is structured, is that football has a problem with behaviours. Football has a problem in establishing what is appropriate and inappropriate behaviour, really defining it and really embedding it in the game.

"What the PFA have done in supporting these players and for the players to come forward is a landmark and it's a turning point for football.

"But we have to take this turning point really seriously and use it as a baseline to drive appropriate behaviours across the game of football.

"If you look at the seriousness of some of these comments, I've never heard this level of serious, so-called banter. They're just offensive and disgusting remarks made in a workplace environment.

"I've been involved in this industry for 25 years. In any other walk of life, this would be instant dismissal, but in football for some reason, we have a different standard for this set of behaviours and we're trying to interpret whether an individual is racist. I find that completely and utterly bizarre.

"I think the facts are the facts, and the facts we've established are that a number of really offensive comments were made to Crawley employees by a senior person in an organisation, and we cannot determine whether that individual is not racist. I'm not making that assertion at all, but I certainly know the FA panel haven't got the power or the insight to determine that either.

[ad hoc]

I thought you couldn't even see a thread if you had the starter on ignore

Ah you've edited now

[Nefertiti2]

I thought you couldn't even see a thread if you had the starter on ignore

Ah you've edited now

Sorry thought this was a different thread....

[Sean of the Shed]

Saying racist things (which require a content warning because they are so racist) isn't the act of "a conscious racist" apparently says the FA

Whilst not normally condoning violence I would like to think at least one person had turned him into an unconscious racist.

[Sean of the Shed]

Here's the original thread, in case you want to move it there.

[NHH]

The reports (evidence report and sentence report) pretty shocking; the Panel was three people; an independent Chair (a lawyer), a club official (Wolves Secretary) and Tony Agana, former Sheffield United striker, now technology support officer at a Rotherham school.

There's loads of racism detailed and the charges are found for, and then the panel start off by saying they accept that the guy isn't racist, he just said racist things. Until they start to understand that racism is just racist acts, and racists are people who do racist things, they'll never make progress. The FA can moan all they like about how they feel the panel let them down; you fucking picked them in the first place.

[George C.]

The major issue is that the vast majority of the FA have never experienced overt(direct) racism...

Can't speak for Tony Agana, but he must have his reasons for this spurious outcome?

[NHH]

He's part of a generation where black players who were conditioned that being accepted was a more pressing and urgent issue than educating racists (as well as probably having to deal with more regular violent physical manifestations of racism) so I can totally see him taking the same line Brendan Batson did with Ron Atkinson, that saying racist things didn't make someone a racist, and that knowing the person like they did, they could be sure they weren't a racist.

[Nesta]

That's easier to understand when it's Batson talking about Atkinson, but who is Yems to Agana?

Since they've upheld the complaints, and sanctioned him (maybe not sufficiently), what's the point in thd panel trying to look into the guy's soul? What are they, catholic priests?

[My Name Is Ian]

It's a relative side-issue in comparison with, well, what's actually happened, but I do remain kind of amazed that some sort of PR instinct of 'how might this play?' didn't kick in at some point. To make a statement like that in the context of the current times is such a different mindset to anything I could contemplate that it kinda blows my mind. Holy fuckaroni.

[Guy Profumo]

Saying racist things (which require a content warning because they are so racist) isn't the act of "a conscious racist" apparently says the FA

Excellent comment by Tony Burnett

Not quite
The FA have issued a statement to the opposite, and they disagree with that conclusion




https://twitter.com/cricket_badger/s...58957528420352

[Satchmo Distel]

Couldn't the FA just penalize any club that appoints him?

[Sean of the Shed]

I'd imagine there would be all sorts of legal issues if they did.

[Sean of the Shed]

Ideally the surrounding baggage he now has will make him persona non grata in English football.

[Sam]

Not quite
The FA have issued a statement to the opposite, and they disagree with that conclusion




https://twitter.com/cricket_badger/s...58957528420352

Yep, not that the FA are perfect of course but I think Sky Sports' tweet (as used by ad hoc in the OP) has done them a bit here: the BBC and the Guardian, whose reports I read, both said that the 'not racist' finding was by an independent panel and that the FA disagreed with it so strongly they were taking advice on their legal options over it. Pretty obvious the independent panel is how these things are always dealt with as a matter of process and that they didn't think there was any way he'd be found not guilty. I struggle to see any way that the panel can have come to that conclusion if they were operating in good faith.

[My Name Is Ian]

I'd have thought that his Talksport car crash of an interview yesterday, in which he essentially refused that he'd done anything wrong, will be a pretty big nail in his career coffin.

I simply don't accept this, 'oh, they're an independent panel, nothing to do with us, guv' explanation. If the FA appoint them, they're speaking for them, so far as I'm concerned. If they're embarrassed by what's happened this time, they should stop outsourcing their disciplinary process.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Ideally the surrounding baggage he now has will make him persona non grata in English football.

It never seemed to affect others, Malky McKay for example, from getting a job.

Others, admittedly not racists but rapists and such like, were all offered jobs too.

It was supporter and sponsor pressure that stopped them getting jobs.

I hope you're right, but fear you're not.

[Sean of the Shed]

It never seemed to affect others, Malky McKay for example, from getting a job.

Others, admittedly not racists but rapists and such like, were all offered jobs too.

It was supporter and sponsor pressure that stopped them getting jobs.

I hope you're right, but fear you're not.

You may be right. There's occasionally the odd chairman whose moral compass has long since seized, but usually the supporters take the lead on those occasions.
Having said that, give them a reason to justify the signing, like Preston and the odious Ched Evans ("BuT hE wOn HiS aPpEaL, sO hE's InNoCeNt), and they'll welcome them with open arms if the think the team will benefit.

[DCI Harry Batt]

If they're embarrassed by what's happened this time, they should stop outsourcing their disciplinary process.

Absolutely. It's a ridiculous idea, always has been.

[Sean of the Shed]

It's them trying to put a distance between them and the investigation. It's just another example of them failing to take responsibility in my opinion.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Ideally the surrounding baggage he now has will make him persona non grata in English football.

That and he'll be 65 when his ban runs out. But that's not a barrier to 'real football men'.

This whole set up reminds me of an incident that happened during the gay marriage referendum in ireland. Rory O'Neill, who in his alternate drag queen person Panti Bliss had just made aa real stonking speech at the end of some show in the Abbey theatre about the challenges of being a gay person in ireland, and how continually living in an atmosphere of legal inequality had so many knock on effects.

Anyway he goes on the Late late show, and is talking about homophobia in a remarkably patient and even handed manner, suggesting that everyone is to a degree homophobic, even including himself, because we make too much of minor differences, and the act of thinking about gay people as a separate group and having different standards etc, is homophobia in its widest sense, and that people need to 'own' that. (I think that was it, it made a lot of sense at the time anyway) he then went on to say that if people like him can be homophobic, then people who were opposed to the Gay marriage referendum, who actively want to have different legal rules for gay people, and deny them equal rights because they see them as different. He then went on to name the few prominent public opponents of Gay marriage like John Waters (No not the amazing one, The Shit one) and said that if you take the definition of homophobia as thinking that gay people should be treated as different, then people openly advocating for maintaining current inequalities were homophobic.

Waters sued, Rte folded, and paid out. The lesson being that there's a lot of people out there who know that society views certain things as undesirable, but they wish to carry on doing them without being labelled as such. People opposed to equal rights for gay people purely because they are gay don't want to be called homophobic, and in this case in football, you have people who engage in protracted racist bullying, using racist language in the work place etc, aren't necessarily racist. I suppose this was always going to be the next battle, once the battle to describe terrible behaviour as terrible was won. The next battle was always going to be about the campaign for counter definition in reaction, and that one hasn't been fought with half the enthusiasm.

It's an odd defence though isn't it. You really have to be motivated to believe it, to believe jt. Say this lad had been accused of hitting as many people in pubs, as often as he used racist language against his players. He would struggle to define himself as not being violent.

[Sean of the Shed]

That's such a big part of the problem. When it comes to racism, homophobia, transphobia or misogyny or any sort of bigotry people are still of the opinion that they can self assess when setting the boundaries, and in many cases they are indulged in this.