Racism in Football

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The Oxford Dictionary (2014) describes racism as;
“The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races”

To a lot of people, racism is seen as part of human nature, it has been around since the dawn of man and it will be there until the end. The more modern theory is that racist feelings come from your upbringing, basically someone else’s thoughts become your feelings. With this in mind, surely it is possible to abolish racism if is done at an early age.
However, according to Taylor (2002), both of these assumptions are wrong. He thinks that “racism isn’t just an ideology but is an institution; and its origins don’t lie in bad ideas or human nature”.
Taylor comes with the viewpoint that racism originated with capitalism and the “modern” slave trade.
And he is right. In terms of looking at history, we can see that the likes of the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, who were huge benefactors of the slave trade, did not do so on a race basis. This is proof that racism is a more recent plague to society.
Sport and Racism:
Nelson Mandela once said that sports have the power “to change the world… to inspire… to unite people” (Carlin et al., 2008). He said this in 1995 before the rugby World Cup, which help to unite an apartheid stricken country.
In modern times, racism seems to be found in all walks of life, it can be seen in the work place, schools, on the street, etc. It is also in clear evidence in sport, something that people should be able to participate in for enjoyment and friendship, not abuse.
Unfortunately, due to the world we are living in sport is just a mere reflection on soci...

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...he way this theory can be thought of is that the victim and the rescuer work together against the perpetrator. This can result in the perpetrator becoming a victim of sorts. However, Anton Ferdinand did not speak out in the media against Terry and this meant that Terry could not become the victim.
Combating Racism:
With racism being such a complicated matter, trying to create a way to eradicate it is not easy matter. Leading bodies in professional football such a FIFA, UEFA and the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), have all introduced plans to try end racism, both inside and outside the sport. Two of these campaigns are “Show Racism the Red Card” and “Kick it out”. Although none of these campaigns have actually worked properly as of yet, hopefully the young footballers growing up will become more aware of the negatives and problems associated with racism.

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