Racism in Football (soccer) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Racism in Football (soccer) - Essay Example Basically race and football presents itself in several forms. Since the early years of the last century, many fans have used their football matches to express their racial chauvinism though it has been discovered that these were just a minority of the population but causing great trouble. It's very critical how the minority groups could become very dangerous to coaches, players, and fans. Basically the problem could be worse than implied because many respondents perceive not to give bad impressions. This research will study the extent of racial discrimination in football especially at international and professional levels, and the strategies to alleviate this problem. Racism is a big concern in the world of football all over. In essence, racism is not simply aimed at undermining or intimidating football players because of the colour of their skin (Russell 1997). In recent times, coaches, officials and even fans have fallen victims of racial discrimination particularly based on their nationality, ethnic origin and religion. Some people are targeted because they are associated by their opponents rather than the colour of skin and ethnicity (Back & Solomos 1998). There have also been cases where people have been individualized and insulted by their own fans, the most notable incidence was that of John Barnes. Racism is a major problem especially in the European nations and a very critical factor in the cases of hooliganism in football. The real degree to which racism is practiced is virtually difficult to measure since there is no detailed information as evidence or important data and statistical analyses are non existent (Russell 1997). Nonetheless, the activities of disorders in football are particularly on the international level are often referred to as racists or they are perceived to be perpetrated by a groups of racists and currently even some clubs are being considered as being inherently supporters of racism. Types of Racism Racism in football takes a variety of forms and some of them are not clearly seen as discriminatory. However chanting against a team, player, coach, football official or fans has been a common form of racist activity. This was very common especially in the English football in the period around 1970s and 1980s. A crowd of some fans usually made some funny noises at players; in England, fans made monkey noises to intimidate black football players on the field. Some other cases included even more personalized abuse and insults (Back & Solomos 1998). A outstanding case is that of Deptford fire where thirteen black players in their youthful ages were burnt by a mod to death, while chanting insulting songs- ' niggers burning better than petroleum' could be heard even as far as Milwall. There have been anti-Semitic songs targeting for instance the Tottenham Hotspurs fans. Other songs are patriotic and connected to country's national anthems. Due to the increasing number of cases of racist chanting during football matches, a law was enacted in 1991 termed as the football offences act which made these chants during soccer matches an illegal activity but this law is still inadequately effective in its definition of chanting; chanting is defined as 'utterances of any words made repeatedly or making of some sounds in unison with one or a