After missing their penalties in England’s shootout defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were racially abused. And while this was disgusting enough in its own right, it was arguably not even the worst part of the whole thing. The worst part, in my view, is that the abuse was not even a surprise.
As Rashford’s kick bounced off the post I was already thinking to myself ‘he’ll be abused for that if they lose’. And I’m white. Racism is not even a part of my life experience, and I STILL was expecting the abuse. It was as predictable as the sunset, and that’s a serious problem.
It is not a new problem in English football either, but something that has been going on for decades. In the 80s and 90s John Barnes, to name but one, regularly had banana skins hurled at him from the stands. Ian Wright, now a pundit, recently discussed the racial abuse that he regularly receives. The advent of social media, meanwhile, seems to make it all the easier for some to spread hate, with last season even seeing it boycotted by clubs and players for a weekend in an attempt to put a stop to the vitriol that apparently fills the platforms. To no avail, apparently.
While they’d never say something to anyone’s face, meanwhile, those that send racist messages are happy to get out spray cans in the dead of night, with a mural of Rashford in Manchester having been defaced. It has since been restored, and in the interim it was covered with supportive messages from proper fans, but that does not make it any less sickening that the mural, painted as a tribute to Rashford for his campaigning for free school lunches for poor children to be continued through Britain’s first lockdown, was defaced because he missed a penalty.
In response to the abuse he suffered, Rashford released the following statement:
I can take critique of my performance all day long, my penalty was not good enough, it should have gone in but I will never apologise for who I am and where I came from.
And he’s got that spot on. To criticise the performance of a professional sportsman is fair game, but the racial abuse that he and his teammates have suffered is nothing more or less than utterly unacceptable.
That it is so routine is even more of a disgrace.
