My experience at Brighton and Hove Albion

I was a season ticket holder at Brighton and Hove Albion for three seasons and I must say before I explain any negativity that for the majority of my time at the club, I enjoyed a welcoming environment and even felt comfortable enough to take family members to matches. Although football fans represent the football club that they support, I do not feel that these certain individuals represent Brighton and Hove Albion whatsoever and instead let down a fantastic fan base and family friendly club. The club itself does a lot of work tackling discrimination and takes pride in its fight for equality; largely down to the fact the city of Brighton has a large gay community.

Brighton fans are often victims of homophobic chants from away supporters which Kick It Out says should be taken just as seriously as racism. The club itself released a statement on Sunday stressing it has a “zero tolerance approach on all forms of discrimination” with Chief Executive Paul Barber also saying “we simply will not tolerate any form of xenophobic behaviour”. The FA have finally stepped up their game and begun to make arrests for homophobic chanting which is a good sign as it seemed like every other game I could hear away fans attempting to use sexuality as an insult. Last year, they released four anti-discrimination films in an attempt to increase the percentage of cases reported, a statistic which thankfully rises year after year.

The club was in the news recently due to racist chanting by a man in the concourse during their loss to Arsenal in the FA Cup. Sussex Police said “The club contacted us straight away about it” which differs completely to the incidents I witnessed first-hand. Hopefully the club has learnt from their previous mistakes and now involve the police for the crimes committed as a football stadium shouldn’t be a safe haven for crime, on or off the pitch.

In my final season supporting the club, I endured two encounters of outrageous racial abuse and I think the ages of the offenders are what make my case so intriguing. Both offenders were under the age of 18 and each incident occurred within a couple of weeks of eachother. The boys had no affiliation to eachother other than the team they supported and the fact they sat a couple of rows apart from one another. Also, although I was not sitting in the family stand and was instead sitting in the stand notorious for chanting, there were many minors present which makes these attacks all the more atrocious.

 The first incident was a young teenager shouting “you f**king n****r” at a black opposition player after he missed a shot on goal. Thankfully I don’t think the player heard over the crowd noise but many people in close vicinity, myself included, were appalled. It wasn’t long before a steward walked up and pulled him out of the crowd. I am ashamed to say that I knew this person and had spoken to him regularly at the football matches I attended. He carried on attending matches while the disciplinary procedure was ongoing and he later told me that the club had managed to pick him out on CCTV at the exact moment he was reported to have racially abused the player. The club swiftly gave him a five year ban from attending any home or away Brighton and Hove Albion matches but I felt this sentence was insufficient. He could still go to any other sporting events across the country and the police were uninformed of his actions. The ironic thing about this case is his stepdad actually worked at the AMEX stadium as one of the head stewards.

I don’t know as much about the second case but I find it very interesting that the offender witnessed the first incident occur a few games prior as he was merely sat a couple of rows behind. This offender was also a minor and used the same derogatory term “n****r” to abuse a black player. I’m unsure about the severity of his ban but what really shocked me was that after the stewards took him away and presumably gave the boy a primary school-esque telling off, he was allowed back up to his seat to which he was congratulated by his dad and friends. Absolutely disgusting.

For me this shows that racism is learnt from a young age. No one is born filled with hatred; the hatred is often put upon them at a young, impressionable age. Both offenders were under the age of 18, they still hadn’t reached adulthood yet their minds were so horrifically brainwashed into thinking wrong was right. The reaction of the father in the second case proves this, being praised and supported for his victory against equality when quite clearly what he did was an inexcusable act of hate. Football gets a lot of publicity for acts of racism but it’s not a racist sport, at the end of the day the fans go back home after 90 minutes and live there day to day lives. If we are to rid football of racism we need to rid the world of racism and that will only come about with education of equality from an early age.

http://centreforjournalism.co.uk/content/equality-football

Is Racism In Football Being Tackled Correctly?

IS RACISM IN FOOTBALL BEING TACKLED CORRECTLY?

Is racism in football being tackled correctly? Equality is something that as a country we take patriotic pride in and have improved upon for many years. Football is a way of life for many, we live and breathe it, worship it like a religion. The beautiful game has become extremely ugly over the last year though as racism begins to slowly slither back into our hallowed sport. Our countries goal should be to eliminate the virus as rapidly as possible and the cooperation’s need our help to score the goal. Are these controversial companies controlling football such as UEFA, FIFA and The FA dealing with this pandemic efficiently?

The Suarez scandal was the first sign of this evil returning. As most of you will know, Suarez was accused of calling rival player Evra the racially derogatory term “negrito”, roughly translating to “my little black friend” in his hometown Uruguay. This topic felt like it lasted for years when instead it should have been dealt with in weeks which is one of the many reasons why it gathered momentum and became such a heated affair. The scandal got out of hand as it was left unanswered when it was inevitable that the word used is completely unacceptable in our culture. After Suarez was finally convicted, he was given an eight match ban and a measly fine of £40,000, an amount he can earn back in three days wages. For Ajax, Suarez was banned for seven games for biting an opposition player. I think it is absolutely unacceptable that he was only banned one more game for being racist than he did for biting someone as verbal violence is much more hurtful than physical violence.

John Terry was then accused of calling Anton Ferdinand a ‘black c*nt’ after we thought we had endured enough racism scandals for one season. A separate investigation was led by Metropolitan police but he was found not guilty. Terry was then later rightfully charged by the FA but was given half the ban that Suarez was, a disgraceful four games, one game more than the three game bans he gets for one of his trademark red cards. He was given a larger fine than Suarez, £220,000. This was apparently because of his higher wage though and not the austerity of the offence, something I find absolutely ridiculous as it means if a League Two player was racist he would be punished less than if he was playing in the Premier League. We are trying to support equality in sport but how can we do this when our nation’s football association disciplinary system doesn’t seem to support it yet?

A devastating stereotype has unfortunately developed over the years about the racism involved in eastern Europeans football. It is apparent that this is one of the worst regions for racism and this caught the public eye due to the Euro 2012 tournament being held in Poland and Ukraine, two countries infamously known for their fans horrifying Anti-Semitic gestures, chants and attacks. The choice of host was heavily criticised beforehand as they had a vast variety of safer options to pick from yet went for the racism riddled countries to try to show how far equality in football has developed. Scarcely. A panorama documentary was televised weeks before the tournament which documented the terrible treatment foreign people received there. This put many people off going in the first place and the people that went unquestionably suffered, extensive mass clashes between fans flooded the streets and abuse was hurled at players scarring the tournaments respected heritage it had built up in its thriving past. The fact UEFA did not see this coming is ludicrous and they should have been more cautious when choosing the host nations as it was a very dangerous risk to take. They infact seemed to accelerate the racism that occurred by trying to make themselves look good and choosing hooligan infested countries to hold it.

The terraces of another eastern European country were brought to everyones attention earlier this month when the England U21 team travelled to Serbia for a Euro 2013 qualifier. The way the aftermath of this match has been dealt with has been calamitous. Serbia’s fans were incredibly loud and intimidating, verbally attacking the English like petty bullies in a playground.  It came to the end and a mass brawl broke out after Danny Rose reacted to all the racist monkey noises he was subdued to. He smashed the ball into the air with frustration and then was ridiculously sent off for this ‘act of retaliation’.  It is complete madness how someone that has to deal with such torment is sent off; he should be looked after and helped rather than punished. The UEFA and Serbian police charges given were complete nonsense. Two unnamed England players were charged with ‘violence during a sports event’ when television footage shows that they were the ones being attacked. Serbian fans have been charged with lighting flares but have not been convicted of the evident racist taunting raging around the stadium. The Serbian FA is a laughing stock. They said that the brawl started because of Roses ‘vulgar’ behaviour, for which there was none of. They also protected their repulsive, thug like players and fans who were physically and verbally fighting a distressed Danny Rose as he walked off the pitch. UEFA decided to finally take action many months on by charging the Serbian Football Association £65,000 and giving them a one match spectator ban. The fine is pennies to the Serbian FA, a corporation now run more like a buissness due to the finances in the world’s most popular sport. The ban is also not severe enough as it only eradicates the vermin out of the stadium for one match, they will be back again for the next game and will not learn their lesson. Like Paul Ince and many others, I agree that Serbia should be banned from football for a significant amount of time until they sort themselves out, instead of receiving an inadequate charge because this way their fans will not be able to watch the games and the players will also get thoroughly punished for the part they played.

I don’t think racism is being tackled correctly as it quickly becomes more evident in our sport; it needs to be kicked out quickly rather than punished after it occurs. We need to get rid of these miniscule fines, they do nothing. Sufficient bans are the way forward whether it is for fans, players or whole teams and they need to become stricter. This cruel footballing world really needs to get itself together and give racism the red card once and for all. 

Organisations you should be supporting: Many organisations have been formed recently to help contribute to clearing racism out of the game. The most popular campaign fighting racism is the ‘Kick It Out’ organisation.

http://centreforjournalism.co.uk/content/equality-football