Racism in Football Isn’t Going Anywhere And That’s the Point

 

I remember when I was doing my PhD on race, gender, and foreignness in UK higher education, carrying both the weight of my research and the constant doubt of those who insisted racism was already a thing of the past. My title was dismissed by some individuals who argued that times had changed, that racism was no longer an issue. Later, I gave my final document to a white couple who were curious about my research. After reading it, they told me:

 “We don’t think in five or ten years there will be racism like this. The world is changing. The younger generation is more understanding. People are less racist now.”

I told them then what I still believe today: that optimism has always existed during the civil rights movement, during Black Lives Matter and yet racism persists. It does not simply vanish with time. It mutates, it hides, but it never disappears.

I have seen this up close. From personal brushes with Thames Valley Police to the wider history of policing Black and Asian communities in places like Brixton or Manchester, the institution itself has rarely been on the frontlines of anti-racism. If anything, it has too often been the other way around. Look at where police resources go: they are deployed in force to arrest peaceful protesters standing up for Palestine, dragged away in handcuffs for exercising their right to dissent. Yet when it comes to racism in football something visible, public, and deeply corrosive where is that same urgency?

Take Saturday’(16th August) 's Premier League match between Liverpool and Bournemouth, where Antoine Semenyo was racially abused. The cameras caught it, the crowd heard it, yet the response will likely be the same as always: condemnation, a statement, maybe a ban for one or two individuals. If the police and football authorities truly wanted to eradicate racism, they could patrol stadiums, eject offenders immediately, and prosecute them as quickly as they do protesters. But they don’t. Because racism in football isn’t just about a few “bad fans.” It’s about institutions that fail to act with the seriousness it demands.

And this is not new. In the 1980s, John Barnes had bananas thrown at him on the pitch. In 2019, Raheem Sterling called out the media for its double standards in reporting on Black players compared to their white counterparts. In 2021, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka missed penalties for England in the Euro 2020 final and were immediately targeted with racist abuse online, as though their skin colour determined their worth as Englishmen.

Outside the UK, Vinícius Júnior has become the face of this struggle in Spain. At just 25, he has endured repeated racist abuse from La Liga crowds, sometimes breaking down in tears as he asks why the authorities refuse to act decisively. Again, the pattern is the same: outrage, statements, hashtags and then silence until the next time.

Football should be joy. It should be like music, where it doesn’t matter if the artist is Black, white, or brown only that they make us feel something. Football unites people across nations: Brazilians, Argentinians, Africans, Europeans, all on the same pitch. These players are role models for millions. So why, in 2025, are we still seeing Black men attacked in stadiums?

Because this isn’t just about football. It’s systemic. As Audre Lorde reminded us: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” We cannot expect institutions built on exclusion to suddenly dismantle themselves. Unless the police, the FA, UEFA, universities, and governments take equality seriously not in slogans, not in slick marketing campaigns, but in action then my generation, the next generation, and the one after that will still be talking about racism.

The problem isn’t just that racist fans exist. The problem is that institutions enable them. Authorities act swiftly when money is threatened point deductions for clubs in financial trouble, sanctions for ownership scandals, lawyers dispatched when sponsorship deals are at risk. But when Black players are abused? The response is slow, inconsistent, often symbolic.

Meanwhile, players are told to “rise above it,” to “ignore the abuse,” to “let their football do the talking.” But why should they have to? Why should Semenyo, Rashford, Vinícius, or any Black player carry the burden of being both athlete and activist, when the institutions that profit from their talent refuse to protect them?

Football mirrors society. And in society, racism is not an aberration it is a feature. It is baked into our policing, our schools, our media, our politics. The stadium is just another arena where it plays out loudly, visibly, in a way no one can deny.

So, when people ask me if things are getting better, I think back to that conversation during my PhD. People have always believed racism would fade with time. But time alone does not dismantle systems. Hope alone does not dismantle institutions. Action does.

Until then, football will continue to reflect the society we live in: brilliant, diverse, capable of unity but still scarred by the racism its institutions refuse to root out.

And that is the tragedy.