How the football codes in liberal democracies confronted racism

We live in a time when liberal democracies are regularly (and rightfully) reminded of the need to address ongoing incidents of racism in society (and sport).

For example, one 2021 article observes "that only 3.9% of coaches in Europe's 14 biggest (football) leagues have an ethnic minority background", perhaps replicating "age-old historic patterns of black labourers and white owners supported by scientific racism, slavery and colonialism".

However, while racist incidents persist, it is also important to show the progress that has occurred in recent decades in certain liberal democracies (including Australia, the US and England) with regard to sport rather than accept critical analysis alone.

In this article, I will highlight aspects of the major football code experience in Australia, the US and England to provide historical reasons why the culture towards race/ethnicity in sport is much better today than decades ago, and how attitudes continue to evolve for the better in recent times.

While entrenched racism was evident in the English-speaking nations by the early 20^th century, the inherent strength of their liberal democracies always gave individuals/groups a legitimate right/opportunity to promote their cause and express views, albeit the rate of change for issues such as racism was painful and very slow.

Nowhere is the racism in sport issue better understood than in the US given that the African American population has been around 10-12 per cent since 1890 when segregated sports became evident at a time when sports in the liberal democracies flourished.

In contrast, the proportion of United Kingdom (UK) people born in Africa or the Caribbean was still just 0.4 per cent of the total population by 1961, with those who identified with African heritage only increasing to 3 per cent by the 2011 UK Census.

In Australia, its population was mostly British up to the Second World War before the arrival of many immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, with a more diverse mix of immigrants (including Asians and Africans) only occurring from the 1970s with the softening of the White Australia policy.

However, the US experience with racism would also influence British and Australians as many were constantly exposed to US culture, whether it be entertainment, social and political developments.

In the US, constantly evolving through societal interaction that challenged the status quo, barriers for blacks in US sport were gradually broken down by various factors, including those who bravely challenged the absurdity of racism.

For instance, a 1940 New York University protest from 1940 into 1941 "served notice to intercollegiate sports world that discrimination based on colour "would no longer be tolerated" after its football team chose to expel seven protest leaders and sideline its star black player simply because the opponent (the University of Missouri) maintained a strict colour line over interracial play.

Of course, even after the Second World War, and despite many black Americans serving in the war effort, black athletes continued to experience racial abuse and discrimination by "opponents, teammates, fans, coaches, the student body, and the wider establishment of sports writers and bowl committees".

During the 1960s, however, as sport became more professional and society was made more aware of injustices in this era of television, many factors led to much greater racial integration in sport.

This included mass protests in the US about racial issues and federal intervention, an aspect also evident in Australia with the 1967 referendum finally upholding the natural citizen rights of Aboriginal people.

Economics also played its role as money and competition encouraged complete integration of teams with the effort often led by white college and university administrators, athletic directors, and coaches.

By 1971, the University of Mississippi became the last Southeastern Conference football team to integrate its team.

Of course, racism did not go away in the 1970s and 1980s in the US, or in any other liberal democracy.

In the early 1980s, when Paul Canoville became Chelsea's first black player, some fans stayed home in protest, while English fans on a flight home from the Brazil in 1984 abused the Football Association's chairman for allowing "sambos" in the team despite the black player John Barnes scoring a great goal for England against Brazil.

In 1988, the famous NBA player Shaquille O'Neal, then an 18 year old playing at a small high school in Texas and an All-American, noted references to him as a monkey or gorilla with a tree outside one school having "a black, 7‑foot scarecrow hanging from the tree with my jersey on it".

In 1993, a journalist watching a football game in a London pub in 1993, recalled a person making monkey noises each time John Barnes got the ball drawing laughter from his friends.

That same year, the AFL player Nicky Winmar, after being taunted all day by rival supporters, turned to a section of the crowd, lifted his guernsey, pointed to his stomach and declared "I'm black and I'm proud to be black".

But general attitudes were changing as many more whites embraced black athletes as their sporting heroes and abandoned their abhorrent racist attitudes.

As noted by Brian Reade in 2018, who spent the late 1970s in the West Midlands of England, it was the first generation of black players that "killed racism as a mass participation sport on our terraces by confronting it with the force of their own talent".

Referring primarily to West Brom's three black players Laurie Cunningham, Brendon Batson and Cyrille Regis, Reade notes how the "Three Degrees play was a combination of technique, pace and power which set them apart from many of the plodders around them".

With such players initially facing "a torrent of monkey grunts" and variations of the n-word insults, at a time when the National Front were leafleting outside grounds, Reade notes that such racist attitudes became "banal and counter-productive … because the majority of fans now had their own black heroes".

In Australia, indigenous AFL players increasingly refused to accept on-field racial vilification by the 1990s, by acting collectively through informal support networks based on shared heritage that also influenced the AFL Commission at a time when the latter too was eager to improve the image of the game and make appeal to a bigger national and family audience.

The AFL Commission's strategic planning now included ongoing development of a program to combat racial, religious and gender vilification.

The British also led Europe in terms of addressing racism in football.

In 2005, Trevor Phillips, chairman of the UK's Commission for Racial Equality, himself black, noted how the game's contribution to fighting racism in Britain has been "absolutely crucial" and contrasted greatly to 20 years ago when "racism in English grounds was almost as bad as it gets".

Barracking Chelsea for 45 years, Phillips noted that "There was a long period where I couldn't go because I'd be the only black person in the Shed [end]", yet "Now I can take my daughters", am "able to support a football club" and "belong to something, which doesn't define me by my colour".

In 2005, with three Blackburn fans recently fined and banned from grounds until 2009 for shouting racist abuse with racist players fined and shamed, Simon Kuper argued that England had been more successful than elsewhere in France, Italy and the Netherlands because the English approach had promoted racism as unpatriotic with England's white players also complaining to the media when their black players were abused in matches abroad.

Major progress today in the football codes is also evident by the high representation of black players in various major football leagues in the US, Australia and UK.

In the US, it is estimated that 70 per cent of NFL players are black.

In England's Premier and Football League, a 2015 estimate had black representation in the Premier League and Football League at 25%, albeit just 6.5% of managers (6 of 92 clubs).

In Australia, a 2016 article noted that Indigenous representation on AFL playing lists was around 9% (3% for administrative ranks), compared to 12% for the National Rugby league (4% administrative roles) at a time when the Indigenous people comprised 2.7% of Australia's population.

While Australia has a relatively small population of those with African backgrounds, they too are now also making their mark in Australia's various football codes.

As of 2021, Australia's A-League had 34 African-Australian players make an appearance, compared to 26 last year and 18 in previous years.

In the AFL, there are many Australians of African background playing in 2021, including the 2021 All Australian Aliir Aliir (Port Adelaide) and the brilliant Isaac Quaynor (Collingwood).

While the AFLW is less represented by African Australians, the South Sudan Akec Makur Chuot (Richmond) leads the way for many other talented youngsters to join the ranks in coming years.

In Australia's rugby codes, players of Polynesian and Melanesian backgrounds are numerous and play in nearly every club with many achieving Australian team representation.

Major football codes offer sporting opportunities where Australians, Brits and Americans of all racial/ethnic backgrounds can interact and enjoy participation from the junior level to the professional leagues, which helps breakdown barriers between them.

What remains important today, however, are efforts by the liberal democracies to never allow racism to gain a foothold in society again.

In the US, a 2019 Pew Research poll showed that 65 per cent of Americans (65%) felt that it has become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views since Trump was elected president with 45 per cent feeling that this had become more acceptable.

Nevertheless, the US will never be able to ignore the issue of racism in sport ever again, as reminded to all Americans by many NFL players taking the knee in respect to the Black Lives Matter movement, a movement that also led various national team to do the same during the recent Euro 2020 football competition, including England, Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Portugal and Switzerland.

In Australia and the UK today, there is near universal condemnation of racism, including in sport.

In 2021, after the Euro final when the English soccer player Marcus Rashford received a torrent of abuse online om Twitter and Facebook after missing a penalty, many prominent public figures including Prince William and Prime Minister Boris Johnson strongly condemned the actions.

A British government source stated "We want real-life consequences for the people who are tweeting this abuse" with the British government seeking information on the account holders.

Twitter said the "abhorrent racist abuse directed at England players … has absolutely no place on Twitter" and that it had removed 1000 tweets and permanently suspended accounts.

In Australia, after the NRL player Latrell Mitchell reported he had experienced online racial abuse, two New South Wales men were arrested and charged for using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.

With Indigenous football players receiving the most abuse during the Indigenous rounds of the major Australian AFL and NRL codes, with a massive increase in online abuse during the last few years, the long-awaited federal Online Safety Act is intended to expand the powers of the eSafety Office to gather information, penalise anonymous accounts and create a process to remove toxic cyber abuse "when online platforms fail to do so".

To conclude, while we still live in a world where racism does exist, the experience of the football codes shows that race and ethnicity no longer prevent black players from participating or express concern and even call out racism, rights that are also supported by a clear majority of Australians, British and Americans.

Hence, I, for one, reject any argument that little has changed with regard to racism in recent decades, especially with regard to sport as discussed here by recent developments in the football codes in the US, England and Australia.