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Eni Aluko, Mark Sampson and the FA

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    #51
    Matthew Syed has done a very Syedesque thing (via Mediawatch)

    It’s not like Matthew Syed to place his person moral compass over a burning sporting issue whether it fits or not, using it to tell us why, actually, we’re wrong. Aside: It’s exactly like him.

    On Wednesday, Syed reveals that he has deliberated and cogitated over Eni Aluko’s accusations of racism against England women’s manager Mark Sampson.

    Sampson is being hounded out of his job by ‘Twitter hysteria’, you see. Despite plenty of people arguing with no elements of hysteria that they are alarmed by the incidents we have heard about and deeply concerned by the additional accusations of bullying and subsequent weak internal investigations. Blame the trolls, even if they aren’t trolls.

    As so often with Syed, it’s difficult not to just stare at the piece as a whole while shouting internally: ‘IS THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENING?’, but we’ll try and get over that. We’re not Twitter hysterics, you see:

    ‘So, on the basis of what we have seen so far, this “scandal” is based upon two comments, one of which was judged not to have been made, and the other of which is rather innocuous.’
    No and no. This scandal is based upon two comments and general concerns about other accused behaviour, including bullying, discrimination and victimisation. Secondly, the term ‘rather innocuous’ is the opinion of the author, which is a little rich when we’re being told off for apparently not being subjective. Strong start.

    ‘The ebola comment could have been a misjudged joke, assuming it was actually said, which Sampson denies. It might have reflected genuine fear, given that the ebola outbreak was at its height at the time. Either way, to call this a “racism” storm is to trivialise racism.’

    For those unaware, Sampson is accused of ‘joking’ with Aluko that he hoped that members of her family coming over from Nigeria were not bringing Ebola with them. Given that Aluko – and the PFA – describe it as a racist joke, the idea of it being a reflection of Sampson’s ‘genuine fear’ is ludicrous. He is also accused of joking that another mixed-race player had been in trouble with the Police. She had not.

    It might well have been a misjudged joke; a misjudged racist joke. Calling it as such is not ‘trivialising racism’, because there is not a league table. Nor is there a big file in which we keep racist actions and words that will get too full if we don’t ignore some incidents of racism. ‘Actually, calling this racism out to be racism damages the fight against real racism’ is nonsense.

    For the record, Syed describes how ‘ebola outbreak was at its height at the time’. Actually, Sampson made that comment in November 2014. Nigeria was declared ebola-free in October 2014. Misjudged and ill-informed, then.

    It’s important to add here that Syed clarifies his view in the comments section:

    ‘I don’t think the Ebola comment was inappropriate per se. Context is crucial, here.’

    So there we have it. Even aside from the racism, Syed doesn’t even believe that the ebola joke was inappropriate, despite being made from a boss to someone beneath them, and despite the recipient of the joke being offended and hurt.

    Syed then spends a few paragraphs telling us how racism used to be worse in the past so we shouldn’t call out this kind of incident now, just like women shouldn’t expect equal pay because they didn’t used to be allowed to vote and now they are.

    It includes an anecdote about his own past where a teacher he liked made a racist joke, but Syed forgave him because ‘I judged the sentence not by its content but within the wider panorama of what I knew about Mr Charters: his decency, kindness and hatred of bigotry.’

    Here’s the thing Matthew: that’s fine. In that incident you contextualised the comment made in its wider context. But isn’t that exactly what Aluko has also done, but making a different conclusion based on her own evidence? She was there; you weren’t.

    ‘Sampson’s comments apparently trended last week, which confirms my opinion of what a shallow medium Twitter can be. Some say that the reputation of the England women’s coach will never recover.’
    And some say that a person in a position of authority should have thought of that before making a racist joke about a player’s family (and that’s without touching on the allegations of bullying).

    ‘Perhaps the most troubling thing of all is that so many young people are among those who rush to be vicariously offended by remarks that have not been substantiated, still less contextualised.’
    Yes, the troubling thing in all this is not the accusations of institutional racism, but people being offended at racist jokes. Keep fighting that good fight.

    The irony in Syed telling us that it is important to know the context the line was issued in before attacking Sampson in a piece defending Sampson without knowing the context the line was issued in is not lost on Mediawatch. Again, Aluko was there; he was not. Perhaps we should take her view on it.

    ‘Some might say that Sampson’s remark must have been bigoted since Aluko claimed to have been hurt by it. I have some sympathy with this view but offence alone cannot be sufficient to establish guilt. This would be to place too much weight on the perspective of the victim and not enough on the accused. In a world where subjective offence was taken as prima facie evidence of wrongdoing, normal communication would shut down, for who would dare say anything at all?’

    The classic Syed, the verbal flounce. What is the world coming to if people in positions of authority can’t make racist jokes without fear of retribution? Next they will stop us telling ’Knock knock’ for fear of hurting the door’s feelings, won’t they? It’s political correctness gone mad.

    Mediawatch has a general rule of thumb that doesn’t stop us ‘daring to say anything at all’: don’t say things that would generally be considered as offensive and don’t say things that could quite clearly be construed as racist. And if you are going to say them, don’t be surprised when people call you out on it.

    Comment


      #52
      I bet he hates football, secretly. If it's not cricket or athletics, he's not getting a stiffy. That was a beautiful, brutal takedown from Mediawatch. You can count the minutes before Syed crosses the floor Paul Johnson style from Centrist Sensible bore to full on rabid right. That's just a Tony Parsons column that has a house near Carcassonne.
      Last edited by Lang Spoon; 30-08-2017, 19:33.

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        #53
        Originally posted by Lang Spoon View Post
        That's just a Tony Parsons column that has a house near Carcassonne.
        Made me laugh.

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          #54
          As this has gone on its become apparent it's more than just a couple of comments and badly judged banter.

          A real shame this. I was talking to a guy who plays locally and was coached by Sampson at college who rated him as an excellent coach. But then you can be good at your job without being a good person.

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            #55
            Mark Sampson contradicts own evidence over Eni Aluko and Ebola statements

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

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              #56
              I thought there were some good points made about this story in the WSC article on the Euros this month.

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                #57
                BBC News at Ten fairly soft soaped him tonight.

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                  #58
                  PFA are pushing for a new investigation

                  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41287018

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                    #59
                    Sampson goes.

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                      #60
                      Oh, really...

                      The BBC understands Sampson's departure relates to fresh allegations regarding his behaviour in a previous role some years ago.

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                        #61
                        Inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour, yet no safeguarding issues.

                        Fucking hell.

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                          #62
                          Mark Sampson sacked as England manager after fresh allegations of inappropriate conduct

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

                          Lots of things implied in this piece. It won't be long before the full details come out.

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                            #63
                            lol wonder how the england players feel after their display yesterday.

                            apart from aluko (and players like sanderson and asante, who've been vocal in their support for her) pretty much everyone has come out of this looking terrible.

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                              #64
                              Southgate was also very vocal in support of Sampson. Oops.

                              But how the fuck did this report sit on the shelf so long without being looked at?

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                                #65
                                This is a fudge by the FA. They don't want to admit that they ignored charges of racism so have gone looking for something - anything - else they could use to justify removing the manager. Otherwise the FA would have to admit they should have done something earlier.

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                                  #66
                                  Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                  This is a fudge by the FA. They don't want to admit that they ignored charges of racism so have gone looking for something - anything - else they could use to justify removing the manager. Otherwise the FA would have to admit they should have done something earlier.
                                  Think it's far more likely they ignored the report and someone threatened to go public about it.

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                                    #67
                                    Originally posted by Antepli Ejderha View Post
                                    Mark Sampson sacked as England manager after fresh allegations of inappropriate conduct

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

                                    Lots of things implied in this piece. It won't be long before the full details come out.
                                    Thing is though is that they aren't fresh allegations. They were issues that were raised at the time of Sampson's appointment and the FA at the time felt they were not important or they just didn't bother to read the report. Whether you believe Sampson is a racist bully whose behaviour is inappropriate for his role or not, I'd say he has a fair case for unfair dismissal, as any accusations of misconduct had already been dealt with and either had been decided that he did not impose a risk with regard to the above, or, with regard to the racism and bullying, had been dismissed (however dubiously) altogether after both an internal and external investigation.
                                    What comes out of this in the end is the continuing archaic ineptitude and pomposity of the FA. They once again failed to deal with serious issues that should no longer be blighting modern football, ie racism, bullying, sexism. In the past they have berated other associations and the international authorities for not dealing with similar problems yet when it lands on their own doorstep they have chosen to brush it away because success, it seems, is the overriding quality above all others.
                                    Ironically they are going to parliament next month to face a government select committee, and are therefore going to be spending the day being castigated by people who are truly adept at sweeping stuff under the carpet and hiding skeletons in the closet.

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                                      #68
                                      Well said Sean.

                                      And don't MPs just love that sort of stuff, eh. It's a rare opportunity to take the moral high ground over a group of people of greater archaic ineptitude, pomposity, institutional racism and corruption (etc) than themselves. They were really keen to let FIFA have it in the past year or three, on similar grounds.

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                                        #69
                                        I'm not sure that Sampson would want to sue if that then exposed him to further scrutiny. See Oscar Wilde.

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                                          #70
                                          Off topic, but here's a prediction:
                                          • The FA go ahead and change the means of entry to the WSL from promotion to a licensing system.
                                          • Man Utd finally form a professional team and are granted a WSL license.
                                          • Mark Sampson is appointed their manager.

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                                            #71
                                            But yeah, you get the feeling that this report could have gathered dust for eternity as long as the Lionesses were presenting a happy, winning face.

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                                              #72
                                              Sampson putting this banner up was clearly the final straw.

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                                                #73
                                                I find this Mark Sampson person strange, you have that kind of skeleton in your cupboard and cannot keep your head down.

                                                Seems obvious to me that someone threatened to go to the tabloids.

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                                                  #74
                                                  Not sure about the threat of going to the tabloids. By using this old report as the excuse to fire him, the FA has put it in the papers anyway.

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                                                    #75
                                                    What on earth were they doing? seriously how the fuck did this happen? Why at no point did no-one ever take a step back and say, "this is a fucking terrible idea, there is literally nothing but downside attached to dealing with this cunt, and quite frankly he's so unimportant that you can move him on without anyone really caring/noticing/paying attention." This is very close to being the worst possible outcome from this scenario, and it's entirely the result of them deliberately following the wrong path. It's like they can't help walking towards the ominous sounding cellos. Lots of people should lose their jobs over this fucking disaster. this whole thing is the sporting organisation equivalent of taking a load of crystal meth and getting naked and tugging it at a road junction.

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