Football, Racism, Politicians, The Press

Well! Would you believe it? The Prime Minister is holding a ‘summit’ to discuss racism in football! Why? Because there has been one incident of one player been found to be guilty of racially abusing another player. The English Premier League is almost certainly one of the leading leagues in the world for combatting any form of racism. All the teams are multi-racial and racist incidents are and have been nil until the Luis Suarez incident. It must be remembered that Suarez is a Uruguayan who has only been in the country a very short time. The John Terry incident is sub-judice and has not been tested before any sort of court or tribunal and therefore cannot even be considered as part of a problem unless one is pre-judging the trial. So why does our busy prime minister have to hold a summit? As usual the matter has been driven by the media who need a crisis to write about, to fill their pages and to give the 24 hour news channels something to fill their spaces with. Once the transfer window has passed the media have nothing to speculate on and therefore need to create something. Cameron like all politicians has seized on an opportunity to create some self-publicity and to improve his public image. The simple facts do not merit any intervention at this level. Life never changes. The probability is that all the posturing will actually place racist ideas in the minds of people who didn’t have them in the first place!