Racism in footbl Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Racism in footbl - Essay Example umbers of black players started coming into English football leagues in and it was common to hear team managers and others officials of the team say that blacks had a lot of skill in terms of their game, but they lacked the courage which other players displayed (Jarvie, 1995). These were certainly racist comments but no one paid much attention to them at the time as discussed by Szymanski (2000) who reports that this problem of racism is still not over. In fact, it has become more evident with the fans of the game in an overt manner (Moran, 2000). Even though football is the most popular sport in the world, it is still influenced by long standing biases and the stereotypes that the fans live with (Carrington and McDonald, 2001). Of course, the idea of stereotypes and biases has certainly taken a backseat in the real world simply because education, awareness and understanding has continually been developed by social scientists, yet in moments of passion such issues may surface quite clearly. To understand how racism in football affects the game, the players and the fans, it is important to examine how and why racism manifests itself in football. The basic reason for fans being racist connects directly with the hooligan culture that has developed along with football in England. A secondary reason is the higher level of racism in general when it comes to regions that have high immigrant population levels as described by Crabbe (2004). Of course, laws are in place and punitive actions have been taken by many organisations to correct the behaviour of players and fans who have engaged in racist behaviour (Carrington and McDonald, 2001). Players have been fined and fans have been banned due to racist behaviour but this may not be enough to take the evil of racism away from the sport. The analysis done by Crabbe (2004) in relation to racism indicates that football officials would rather ignore the issue rather than try to solve it. Even though the situation concerning