Racism in English football

[Nocturnal Submission]

Racism in English football

Seriously! You think that Liverpool and Klopp are planning on parting company anytime soon?

[Sean of the Shed]

Racism in English football

jeanmid wrote: I really do resent the idea that because you criticise Sterling or any other black player that automatically makes you a racist.

There are plenty of good reasons to criticise Sterling for some of his performances and behaviour, but I think the point being made is that the criticism Raheem Sterling receives is disproportionate to white players in the same situation. For example I don't remember Adam Lallana or Tim Cahill getting slaughtered on the front page of the Red Tops for buying ostentatious bathroom fittings after the Euros.

[Guy Profumo]

Racism in English football

Lang Spoon wrote: Let's just say Phil "Fucking" Thompson's contempt for Silva is no surprise, if the persistent rumours of his (let's be kind and call it xenophobic or "old-fashioned" rather than racist) behaviour while coaching at LFC with that old spoofer Houllier have any truth. A horrible man by all accounts.

If that's the case let's not.

(He was in the same dressing room as Tommy Smith, wasn't he?)

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Racism in English football

Sean of the Shed wrote:

I really do resent the idea that because you criticise Sterling or any other black player that automatically makes you a racist.

There are plenty of good reasons to criticise Sterling for some of his performances and behaviour, but I think the point being made is that the criticism Raheem Sterling receives is disproportionate to white players in the same situation. For example I don't remember Adam Lallana or Tim Cahill getting slaughtered on the front page of the Red Tops for buying ostentatious bathroom fittings after the Euros.

Maybe not the best example since Cahill is half-Samoan, but I suppose as far as the red tops are concerned he's white.

[Sean of the Shed]

Racism in English football

Fucksake. I meant Gary Cahill.

[Lang Spoon]

Racism in English football

Ah frank Sinclair. Was talking shite so. Again. Only remembered the Lamps Gudjonsen Morris etc cunts from that incident.

Never went the full Racist tag in describing that Thompson bastard cos these are unconfirmed unpublished (unlike Smith) rumours. Though apparently his off colour green room comments after last years' Raith Rovers Hall of Fame (which even if it sounds laughable is a bigger draw crowd wise than half their games) gig were pretty vile, but the informant was half cut at the time and prone to exaggeration so...

The bollocks about Sterling's interior design tastes definitely stunk of casual racism. I'm sure yer typical whitey player's gaff is like an Australian's nightmare, but doesn't usually merit comment in the fucking Mail online.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Racism in English football

I think there is a slight whiff of classism in the attitude from the likes of the Daily Mail and their readership towards footballers in general, which is accompanied by generous doses of racism when those footballers happen to be black.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Racism in English football

Yes, I think its more about class than race too. I seem to remember everyone having a good old laugh about Stephen Ireland's car and gaff a few years back, including on OTF.

I was going to edit the above by changing "class" to "social class" but it might be more accurate to leave it as it is.

[Sean of the Shed]

Raheem Sterling speaks out.
The fact that he does so without mentioning his own appalling treatment at the hands of the British printed media says a lot for the humility of the bloke, he's had plenty of examples that he could have brought up. I'm guessing the abuse he got from a group of Chelsea fans yesterday has finally tipped him over the edge.

[Sits]

He's done that very well. Good on him.

[Patrick Thistle]

That's a good piece and good comparisons. The abuse Sterling gets is mainly for being young, gifted and black.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Three, minimum, incidents in a week. But don't worry Gordon Taylor is still there to fix it.

[Tactical Genius]

Well said Raheem, hopefully other black footballers will rally around and support him from the inevitable backlash.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Hmm, I don't know if the media is going to be able to mount too much of a backlash. You can even see it in that article. Sterling isn't talking to a journalist. He's had a think about things, and then decides to go on Instagram and punch the Daily Mail in the throat. (Hopefully it's the beginning of a trend) They're clinging on by their fingernails to access to football, as Clubs are eyeing up moving everything inhouse, and even Murdoch has to be careful, because the PL contract is now so big that the balance of power has completely reversed. So they're in a weak position to begin with and the problem is that Sterling has a really really good, obvious, and unarguable point.

The other thing is the way he has framed it is very deft. This isn't a PR man/woman writing this for him. This is clearly him on his phone. And he doesn't talk about himself, he talks about two other players, and allows everyone who covers this article to make the obvious point that this is exactly what happened to him. By allowing other people to join up the dots he robs his critics of the opportunity to call him self centred etc, and he keeps it tightly focused to the Media making buying a house for your mam an unacceptable thing for young black footballers to do. It's slick work.

It's also going to be problematic to go after an england star in the aftermath of the world cup. They gave it a good go in the run up and that Gun Tattoo controversy died a pretty horrible death when people started pointing out that they were just demonizing him because he was black. Then England got to a semi final, and everyone is broadly speaking pleased with the England players.

I think it might be worth taking a look at how Piers Morgan is faring on twitter to see the problem facing people seeking to dip their toe in this controversy. He seems to have crossed some sort of line this time. The Top tweet on his feed currently is this.

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1071870690150760449

This is not going well.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Raheem Sterling has kicked up a storm but as ever the outrage will pass

https://www.theguardian.com/football...y_to_clipboard

Excellent piece by Stan Collymore

[Sean of the Shed]

Morgan was one of the loudest voices criticising Sterling about the gun tattoo without once bothering to get any background or perspective on it. He didn't give a fuck about the racist undertones of his stance on it and how that would affect the view of the dumb cunts who actually listen to or read the endless bollocks he continues to spew out. That tweet is pathetic. He might as well have said "some of my best friends are black". He's a fucking hypocrite, not that anyone on here needs me to tell them that.

[Sean of the Shed]

Paul McCarthy

https://twitter.com/PaulMcCarthy66/status/1071834431864889351

[Patrick Thistle]

Completely clueless Chelsea fan on Talksport just now justifying abusing Sterling for something he'd done to Luiz. Then says, "There was a coloured chap next to me..."

Seriously.

[Ray de Galles]

Morgan was one of the loudest voices criticising Sterling about the gun tattoo without once bothering to get any background or perspective on it. He didn't give a fuck about the racist undertones of his stance on it and how that would affect the view of the dumb cunts who actually listen to or read the endless bollocks he continues to spew out. That tweet is pathetic. He might as well have said "some of my best friends are black". He's a fucking hypocrite, not that anyone on here needs me to tell them that.

It reminded me of Pino in 'Do The Right Thing'

Who's your favorite basketball
player?

PINO
Magic Johnson.

MOOKIE
And not Larry Bird? Who's your
favorite movie star?

PINO
Eddie Murphy.

Mookie is smiling now.

MOOKIE
Last question: Who's your favorite
rock star?

Pino doesn't answer, because he sees the trap he's already
fallen into.

MOOKIE
Barry Manilow?

Mookie and Vito laugh.

MOOKIE
Pino, no joke. C'mon, answer.

VITO
It's Prince. He's a Prince freak.

PINO
Shut up. The Boss! Bruuucce!!!!

MOOKIE
Sounds funny to me. As much as you
say nigger this and nigger that,
all your favorite people are
"niggers."


PINO
It's different. Magic, Eddie,
Prince are not niggers, I mean, are
not Black. I mean, they're Black
but not really Black. They're more
than Black. It's different.

[Tactical Genius]

Berba

Hmm, I don't know if the media is going to be able to mount too much of a backlash.

give it time, we are hours into this. If they cannot instantly retort, they will go into victim mode and plead innocence like Piers Morgan attempted to do or lay low and bide their time.

Then they will dig up something mildly controversial that he has (or will do) and then they will come at him with full force.
He also put it on his instagram as he didn't want it to be spun or edited or remixed had he gone to the media direct.

regarding Collymore.

Especially all the white middle‑class men who work in the national, mainstream media who simply couldn’t wait to get on Twitter on Sunday and tell the world how they feel Sterling’s pain and how it’s time to ease not only that pain but the pain of all young black people in this country. Yet how much do you want to bet that, come Monday morning, this will all be forgotten by those same people? They’ll move on to the next story, feeling they’ve done their bit, while in truth they have done nothing at all.

Real talk there. Just to add to that, those same people were the ones arguing vociferously that the previous attacks on Sterling were not racist but class-related. See earlier posts on this thread for good examples.

Also, when John Barnes comes out guns blazing, you know something is up.......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f4rVvpmzJ0

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

He also put it on his instagram as he didn't want it to be spun or edited or remixed had he gone to the media direct.

well that and he has 4.2 million instagram followers, giving him about twice the "circulation" of the Sun and the Mail put together. this is where it has all changed. The shoe is on the other foot now. They're on a loser with this. Aside from Sterling being able to bring an avalanche of shit down on their heads if he so chooses, there's just a lot of people waiting for them. I tell you it's no longer safe for a middle aged middle class white conservative to write an article tastefully sneering at the disgraceful behaviour of that oik sterling, without a bunch of politically correct snowflakes hunting them down on social media and throwing burning bags of dog shit at them.

[Tactical Genius]

He also put it on his instagram as he didn't want it to be spun or edited or remixed had he gone to the media direct.

well that and he has 4.2 million instagram followers, giving him about twice the "circulation" of the Sun and the Mail put together. this is where it has all changed. The shoe is on the other foot now. They're on a loser with this. Aside from Sterling being able to bring an avalanche of shit down on their heads if he so chooses, there's just a lot of people waiting for them. I tell you it's no longer safe for a middle aged middle class white conservative to write an article tastefully sneering at the disgraceful behaviour of that oik sterling, without a bunch of politically correct snowflakes hunting them down on social media and throwing burning bags of dog shit at them.

The press has been printing these stories for years and where were these political snowflakes?
At most, a few people have raised this, but more in a way to mock the Daily Mail rather than a general outrage how England's best player is being hounded by the media.
Now that Sterling has finally addressed this, they are coming out and commenting like they just realised what is going on.

[Flynnie]

where were these political snowflakes?

There were quite a few about last summer? Sterling is treated by the red tops in a racist way is pretty much received wisdom among my football fan friends, most of whom are leftish-leaning but none on OTF.

[Tactical Genius]

There were quite a few about last summer? Sterling is treated by the red tops in a racist way is pretty much received wisdom among my football fan friends, most of whom are leftish-leaning but none on OTF.

Really, that missed me apart from the odd post on OTF and a short feature on Second Captains podcast (which is very good by the way).

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Heh, I dare you to call Eni Aluko a snowflake to her face. You know better than me where that would get you....

I get where you're coming from, and I reckon that he's going to have to live the rest of his life like Jesus, and even living like jesus got him killed..... And definitely the Daily Mail and the like aren't going to change their essential nature soon. But they've had to change quite a lot over the last couple of years largely due to a variety of factors out of their control. The Immolation of the News of the World being a big part of it. The thing that ultimately stands out about Sterling is that out of virtually all of the players in the premier league, the Newspapers are treating him like he was a Golden Generation player when the News of the World was at its peak. If this was 10 years ago then this would have completely passed without comment, because it would be hidden in a bunch of stories hammering five or six other players, who while often white, were definitely working class. Like those three gammon faced gentlemen with legitimate concerns at stamford bridge, their problem is that they're being a bit too obvious about it, even in the post brexit era.

Essentially the only way this plays out well or neutral for sterling is if he effectively becomes too powerful for them to touch. The thing is that I think this is a definite possibility. It's not going to change the nature of the british press, and I don't know if it's going to be reflective of broader trends in society, but at this point they'd be well advised to back away from this.