UEFA cannot ignore the racist incident in the Rangers-Prague game
Written by Rabbil (Twitter @RA_Sikdar)
The saying that one should hope for the best but expect the worst is a succinct summary of where things lie with racism in football. The game takes steps forward and a few steps back until you realise that it hasn’t moved forward, and that the issues dogging it yesterday remain the issues of today, and most likely tomorrow.
The latest entry is Ondrej Kudela stepping forward to Glen Kamara and allegedly saying “you’re a fucking monkey, you know you are.” It came during the ending moments of Rangers’ game with Slavia Prague. Kudela and Prague have disputed Kamara’s claims, insisting he merely swore at him. Yet, as Kamara has powerfully illustrated, Kudela’s body actions make it difficult to believe he strode up to Kamara just to whisper that. Rather it suggested he was saying something he didn’t want anyone else hearing, and why would one be bothered by others hearing him telling someone to fuck off?
Right now it’s important to see whether UEFA will want to be hearing what Kamara has said. The Rangers midfielder has warned that UEFA will be giving racism the green light if it does nothing. In a statement, he said “since the summer many of us have taken the knee in solidarity with those who have lost their lives to racial violence. If Uefa genuinely wants to ‘show racism the red card’, then it’s time to stop the tokenism and take a zero-tolerance approach. As a player I do not expect myself, nor any other to have to tolerate racial hatred on or off the pitch in 2021. The vile racist abuse by Ondrej Kedel took place on the international stage and any failure to act by Uefa will be viewed as a green light for racism.”
In one powerful statement, Kamara has brought a stinging scrutiny to the vacuousness of footballing authorities’ responses to racism and shown that the current mode of approach is not nearly enough. Taking a knee has been the authorities way of doing nothing by saying something. It’s a weak form of solidarity that doesn’t actually demand any genuine, incremental changes but simply centres itself around the comforts of people who say racism is bad but don’t actually experience it. They can take the knee and use it as an indicator of their liberal conscience but what has it achieved? Is it any surprise that multiple black footballers, including Wilfred Zaha and now Glen Kamara, are disenfranchised with how footballing authorities have responded?
The only way to fight racism is through collective action grounded in unsettling people. Eradicating racism is wider society’s responsibility but football can make itself inhospitable to it. Issue punishments that would serve as deterrents to both supporters and players. Radically examine how the game is, at its foundational basis, still a white man’s game. Change the way certain players are talked about if we want to change how they are abused.
Compare how the media sometimes talks about Harry Kane and Mo Salah. Both are guilty of diving but only one is responsible for dangerous play and it isn’t the Egyptian Muslim. Yet who is demonised and constantly labelled as a diver, seen more negatively? Who is depicted in golden light and seen through a rosy prism as the plucky, hard-working footballer? English football has a tendency to project moral deficits and unethical footballing habits onto foreigners, blaming them for introducing cheating as if our own crop haven’t done it. Our black footballers are discussed in relation to their athleticism and never their intelligence (and then we wonder why there are so few black coaches). There is a racism that explains the relative absence of positive descriptions of foreign players such as Mo Salah compared to that of one like Kane.
What will happen the next time a prominent England player is accused of racism as John Terry was? Should we forget how we as a country forgave him and allowed Rio Ferdinand’s international career to effectively come to an end simply because he was uncomfortable with Terry being in the squad? This was merely nine years ago, and there isn’t much evidence to suggest that anyone has learned their lessons. Terry didn’t become a pariah and is still spoken about glowingly. This example actually presents a good depiction of a fundamental truth: some people just don’t get how bad racism is. The severity of being confronted with hateful language is lost on them because they cannot distinguish the difference between it and vulgar rudeness. If they did, they would understand that a simple apology and a laughable fine don’t fix the problem. Instead, they entrench it by telling guilty parties that they won’t be inconvenienced too much when it comes to racism.
And now they want footballers to take the knee. Fucking hell.
What is taking the knee for if these problems still exist? Does taking the knee prevent the next racist outburst when fans are returning to stadiums? Does it stop an opponent player abusing someone? All it does is convey a message that racism is bad but isn’t intolerable. And that is the problem. It should be intolerable. It should be toxic to one’s career to be accused of racism. It should mark the end of a fan seeing their team at stadiums. It should result in point deductions and fines so deep and lasting that players never forget what they said to someone.
Instead, it’s meek and half-hearted, and completely reflective of how weak footballing bodies are on racism. At the time of writing this, UEFA’s response to the incident at the Rangers-Prague game has been as silent as the players taking a knee on the pitch. This is why this gesture imported from America should not be how we fight bigotry here. Our response should be so loud that our voices become hoarse and that the footballing authorities no longer keep covering their ears but finally listen how they actually should.
