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Sports like football have been trying to eradicate racism from their grounds for many years now, but cricket’s associations have only now come to terms with the fact that the issue needs to be sorted out in a systematic manner in their sport as well. The Symonds incidents with the crowd chants in India and now allegedly with Harbhajan on the field mean that racism has been brought into the glaring lights of the popular media in India.

  One thing to come out of the controversy is that the ICC has no established rules and procedures to tackle and punish race related offences in the game, whether by players or by fans. As football has been dealing with this issue for a very long time now, I thought I would spend some time discussing the history of racism in football, and the steps towards eradication taken by it’s governing bodies.

 The phenomenon of racism in football is obviously not as old as the scourge of racism in society in general, but it has been around for a very long time, and over the last 2 decades, FIFA has initiated numerous programs to try and eradicate this unsavoury practice, which is most prevalent in Europe.

  Most of football’s issues with racism are with the crowds, with monkey gestures and bananas being thrown at black players being very common, seen recently in Spain with Samuel Etoo the target. Crowd chants related to colour of skin are commonplace. Recently we saw this in in cricket as well with Andrew Symonds clearly being targeted by the Indian crowd.

Nazi swastika flags can be found flying in the crowds of Rome and Milan. Also, it must be pointed out that racism as a concept does not only target the colour of one’s skin. Ethnicity and religion are also targets of racists. In fact anti-semitic crowd chants are also heard often in football, especially in the Dutch league. Reported incidents of racism on the field between players are less frequent, but well documented as well.

Pointing out the many specific incidents would take up too much space, but high profile targets of racism have included John Barnes, Thierry Henry, Samuel Etoo and Marcel Desailly. You can check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_football for interesting specific occurrences of racism in the sport.

Football Against Racism in

Stand Up Speak Up is a campaign that was launched by Thierry Henry. Together with sponsor Nike and other top players like Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Adriano, he protests by inviting football fans to voice their opposition to racism. The symbol of the campaign is two interlocked wristbands, one black, and one white. About 5 million of those wristbands have been sold all over

Monetary fines and bans for players and clubs, closure of stadiums and expulsion from competitions are possible punishments that can be meted out for indulging in racism.

There has been a concerted effort on the part of football federations to establish not only formal norms of punishment of offences for guilty players and clubs, but also to ensure that sufficient programmes like the ones mentioned above are initiated to provided education, create awareness,  and  enhance understanding among the general football public.

Besides association level initiatives, many commendable programmes are started by football clubs and their fans, which by virtue of being localized efforts tend to send a more powerful and focused message to the target audience. This is especially helpful for clubs and teams whose fans are guilty of the offence- Leeds United are a good example of this. The media is also a key collaborator in football’s fight against racism, providing the wide reach that only they can provide. Media’s support in the anti-racism movement is crucial.Last but not least, it’s the responsibility of players as role models to ensure that their behaviour is exemplary in this regard. This multi-pronged attack against racism over the past 10 or 15 years has seen a significant decrease in the number of cases of racism in recent times, and the rise in number of players of colour playing in the European game surely is an indicator of success. While offences continue to occur sporadically, the measures so far ensure that these are few and far between.I think it’s high time that cricket starts up such initiatives to ensure that they nip the issue of racism in the bud, as it has just started coming to the fore in the sport. The blueprint for success in this endeavour already exists in football, and it’s up to the ICC, the individual bodies like the BCCI, the fan clubs, the media and most importantly the players themselves to get together and tackle racism before it becomes a major issue.

As always, any suggestions and thoughts on this any any other subject related to sports in general and football in particular would be highly welcome. More on sport to follow shortly!

Rahul Rego,

Talent Acquisition Team

Wipro Technologies.