Recent incidents involving Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Vinícius Júnior have offered a new layer to the question Kick It Out is often asked when discrimination occurs: is it getting worse or are more people reporting it?
The question has been posed again this week after four Premier League players highlighted racist abuse sent to them on social media after matches last weekend.
Did Ratcliffe’s language embolden racists when the Manchester United co-owner said the UK had been “colonised by immigrants”?
Did Vinícius’s determination to report discrimination in the match against Benfica encourage Wesley Fofana, Hannibal Mejbri, Tolu Arokodare and Romaine Mundle to do the same?
Ratcliffe’s language certainly doesn’t help, and players have been calling this out for a long time. One thing is clear: they’ve been showing the type of leadership that those who have more power in the game and society should follow.
Calling out discrimination is a courageous move, and should never be taken for granted. But players are increasingly taking that action because they’ve had enough.
We saw that clearly last summer when the England defender Jess Carter called out the online abuse she received during the Women’s Euros and the then Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo reported an incident in the first Premier League game of the season at Anfield.
In many ways, they set the tone. Like all players, they wanted accountability. A man pleaded guilty in the case of Carter and is due to be sentenced. Semenyo’s alleged abuser is due to be tried. We hope that, via the UK Football Policing Unit, similar action will follow with the latest spate of abuse.
Meeting discrimination with accountability is the biggest way we can embolden everyone to stand up and report it.
There is still a long way to go, and the challenges faced in the online space are numerous. Reports of online discrimination sent to Kick It Out have risen by a third this season compared with the same point last season. Across football as a whole, reports to us are up by 45%, showing that the sport is often a lightning rod for what is happening in society.
The UK Football Policing Unit has said that abuse targeting players can come from overseas, that offenders are using VPNs (virtual private networks) on their phones so that their location is disguised, and abuse keeps evolving from emojis to AI pictures and even audio files. Social media firms have also reduced some of their monitoring networks so that abuse is slow to be taken down.
There is greater alliance and determination among football bodies, Kick It Out, the UK Football Policing Unit and the online regulator Ofcom to tackle this issue together. Clubs are supporting their players and working with police to bring accountability. We have worked with Ofcom to ensure it understands the unique challenges that players face, how abuse can have real-world consequences, and why the regulator must take action – including fines – if social media platforms cannot offer greater protections for users.
Now we must show collective effort to ensure we do all we can to hold perpetrators and social media companies accountable.
Players are bearing the brunt of the abuse and doing their bit. This is about the type of leadership we have seen from Vinícius and the Premier League quartet, and how that needs to be replicated at the top of football.
This is why words and actions matter. Ratcliffe let fans, players and football down. So did José Mourinho when he in effect denied Vinícius’s claims by suggesting his goal celebration had contributed to what followed, or Benfica could not be racist because Eusébio was the best player in the club’s history.
Their comments were roundly criticised across the game, which does so much to bring communities together and make them feel welcome. It showed a unity that we must safeguard and build upon at a crucial moment.
This is also why representation at the top of the game matters. As Bayern Munich’s manager Vincent Kompany said so eloquently last week, there is an opportunity to learn. But there is also a chance to look at football more widely and ask whether the lack of representation among leaders and head coaches contributes to a fair and equitable game.
Would a more diverse leadership encourage the appetite to keep these issues front and centre, even when high-profile incidents are no longer grabbing the media’s attention?
Our analysis of new workforce diversity figures released by clubs at the start of this season shows that in board and senior leadership positions at Premier League clubs, only 3.2% are occupied by ethnically diverse people.
Whether it’s discrimination in stadiums, online or at grassroots level, we want more action, which also means greater transparency in the outcomes. Having more diverse representation in football at board and executive level would ensure that concerns of players are better understood and long-term change is accelerated rather than sidelined.
The new Independent Football Regulator can play a key part in that by ensuring that clubs are held to account where representation is concerned too.
Samuel Okafor is the chief executive of football’s anti-discrimination organisation Kick It Out
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