[Sport] Little is being done': One year on from Bulgaria, football's fight against racism and discrimination is only just beginning

[S e u o n g]

October 14, 2019 should have been a day of reckoning for European football.

During a qualifying match for Euro 2020, some of England's Black players were subjected to abhorrent racist abuse by large a section of Bulgaria fans, causing the game to be halted twice.
The sounds of monkey chants and images of fans performing Nazi salutes were broadcast around the world and many believed this would be a seminal moment in football's ongoing fight against racism.
However, UEFA, European football's governing body, was widely criticized for the one-game stadium ban and $ 83,000 fine it handed Bulgaria for the racist abuse, a punishment many deemed wholly inadequate, in particular as Bulgaria was already in the middle of a partial stadium ban for a previous incident of racism.
Anti-racism organization Kick It Out and the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), among others, argued that the lack of Black, Asian and minority ethnic representatives on UEFA's disciplinary panel was the root cause of the ineffective punishment it was handing out to federations for racist abuse.
In response, UEFA this year finally appointed former professional footballers Bobby Barnes and Célia Šašić as the first Black members on its Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body.
The PFA said Barnes has "vowed to demand a new hard-line approach on racism within" football and said incidents of racist abuse had not been dealt with to an "acceptable standard."

 

 

"UEFA has also developed the Master for International Players (MIP) to allow ex-players, including those from BAME backgrounds, to be able to access positions with responsibilities in a quicker way," the organization told CNN Sport.
UEFA also says it is "working closely with the FARE network to launch joint initiatives across Europe and not only in countries where racist incidents have been noticed," given what happened in Bulgaria a year ago.
Last year, UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin also said he wanted to organize a meeting with current players to discuss the issue of racism in the game and request feedback on what measures need to be taken to address the issue. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, UEFA says this has been delayed.
But the incident last October didn't just have consequences in Bulgaria, which saw its head coach and head of the football federation resign, it also forced English football into a moment of introspection.
Several incidents of racism had marred various levels of the sport and on the same day Bulgaria was handed its fine by UEFA, an English FA Cup match was being replayed after the first game was abandoned due to racist abuse from fans players.

 

 

Managers and coaching

English football has always suffered with a severe lack of representation at the top of the game, something it has been trying, but also struggling, to fix.
According to research carried out by FAREnet in 2014, the proportion of Black, Asian and minority ethnic footballers in English professional football - in first teams, academies and development squads - since the early 1990s has been approximately 30%, with the current figure for professional footballers in the UK at around 25%.
However, this figure has never been mirrored in senior positions or of authority within the sport, a critically important component as without Black representation at the top of British football, who is driving change?
Despite the English Football League announcing in June 2019 that new regulations inspired by the NFL's 'Rooney Rule' would be officially introduced after an 18-month trial period, the number of Black, Asian and minority ethnic coaches in England's top four divisions has decreased.

 

The rule - named after NFL diversity committee chairman Dan Rooney - requires clubs to interview at least one BAME candidate for vacant managerial or senior operational positions.
This time last year, five of the 92 (5.4%) coaches in English professional football were from a BAME background.
Now, that number is just four of 92 (4.3%); Nuno Espirito Santo of Wolverhampton Wanderers, Nottingham Forest's Chris Hughton, Doncaster's Darren Moore and Keith Curle of Northampton Town.
Due to Covid-19 complications and the previous season being extended, the EFL says that the final numbers for the Rooney Rule in 2019/20 are not yet available, but early indications show that it was followed in more than 60% of recruitment processes.
But if the sport is going to address the lack of representation in coaching roles, those involved know it will need to be a collective effort to undo the years of exclusion and bias, both conscious and unconscious, that have led to a dearth of Black coaches at the top of the game.
As Hughton told CNN last year, football "lost a generation of really influential black players that we feel could have made very good managers."
"I came through an era where the perception of black individuals in football was good center forwards, good wingers, fast and strong but not really captain or management material," he said.
"I think after that, it never allowed the game to have them as black role models and as managers for the next generation behind them."
That's why the BAME player-to-coach placement scheme was jointly launched by the Premier League, the PFA and EFL in July with the aim of "increasing the number of Black, Asian and minority ethnic players moving into full-time coaching roles in the professional game. "