Archie Lock

Professor Tucker

Sports Marketing

17 November 2019

Battling Racism in Football

Remarkably, racism still occurs in the modern day and is still a major issue that occurs too

often in sports. Being a massive football (soccer) fan, it is far too frequent reading or hearing

about another incident involving racism in the sport. Currently, the most consistent racist

incidents that occur are heard in the stadium from the fans. There have been too many

incidents to mention in the past 12 months let alone throughout the history of sport. The

main footballing bodies have tried their hardest to resolve these problems however despite

their attempts it still seems to be a problem in the sport. Fédération Internationale de

Football Association, more commonly known as FIFA, have more recently published

updated rules regarding racism during football matches. Unfortunately, we have already

seen these rules take place, since the incidents keep occuring. Kick It Out was a campaign

introduced in 1993 to help ‘Kick racism out of football’. Kick It Out then expanded into an

organization in 1997 and continues to combat racism within the sport. 

As a football fan coming from England, I frequently watch the national team play. Quite

recently, England played a european qualifying game against Bulgaria. Unfortunately, racist

chants and noises were heard from a small part of the Bulgarian fans towards certain

English players. Under new FIFA rules, the referee can decide to abandon a match after

following a new, three-step procedure. These three steps are: Stop the match (followed by a

stadium announcement with the necessary explanation and request for the discriminatory

incident to stop). Secondly, suspend the match by sending the players back to the changing

room for an appropriate period of time (followed by a stadium announcement with the

necessary explanation and request for the discriminatory incident to stop). Finally, abandon

the match (followed by a stadium announcement with the necessary explanation and request
to leave the stadium, in accordance with the instructions of the security personnel). In

England’s recent game against Bulgaria, the match had been suspended and the players for

a brief moment went back to the changing rooms. Fortunately, the game was not

abandoned, however this match is not remembered by the victor or the scoreline, but of the

inexcusable incidents that occurred in the stands towards some of the english players. FIFA

also implement stadium bans for clubs and nations that have had racism occur in their

stadiums, this is another way in combating racism in football, as not only do the fans not get

to watch the team, meaning racism won’t occur in the stadium, this also affects the clubs

financial position, as they are banned from selling tickets, which is a crucial part of most

clubs income. 

As previously touched on, the ‘kick it out’ campaign has been a key part of Football in

progressing the sport and constantly trying to kick racism out of the sport. Kick it out works

closely with organizations to raise awareness of the impact social media can have upon

football-related discrimination online. It has become more recently occurrent that

professional players would receive discriminatory abuse on social media by ‘troll’ accounts.

There have been many cries for help for twitter and other social media platforms to

implement a stricter policy when creating an account to stop this from happening. It is too

easy for a random person to create an account with no affiliation or trace to themselves

which allows them to send any messages they wish, and unfortunately, this occurs too often

with hate targeted towards many of the world’s top athletes with no way of penalising the

offender. 

Social media is becoming more and more influential in sports. This can be negative, as

illustrated in the previous paragraph, but can be also used in many positive ways, one of

which is by helping kick racism out of football. Despite many people thinking social media

creates a negative influence on the sport, with more bad than good in terms of

discrimination, players have taken it into their own hands to help stamp down on racism.
Recently, in a european qualifying match between the Netherlands and Estonia, Gini

Wijnaldum scored for the Netherlands, and stood next to teammate Frenkie De Jong and

posed in front of a camera pointing towards the colours of their skin (Photo in sources). This

photo took the internet by storm, for all the right reasons, it illustrates that despite the issue

still occurring, the players will stand together no matter what to help combat the issue. 

To conclude, when deciding on what I wanted to do my assignment on, I knew that racism in

football is something that surrounds the sport I love. I knew there were many campaigns that

had occurred over the years which would link to marketing and advertising within the sport.

Despite my knowledge and research, it was only when I started writing my paper that I

realised how big of a role social media plays in the sport, and that many issues revolving

around racism and discrimination in the sport either occurs on social media, or can be

resolved on social media, highlighting the influence of online platforms not only in sports

marketing, but in sports in general. 

Sources: 

Fifa’s new disciplinary code https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/who-we-are/news/fifa-introduces-

innovative-approach-with-launch-of-new-disciplinary-code Date accessed: 11/17/2019

Fifa’s new three step procedure https://resources.fifa.com/image/upload/1682-three-step-

procedure-for-discriminatory-incidents.pdf?cloudid=sn7trsj9kkrbufhobcx2 Date accessed:

11/17/2019

History of kick it out 

https://www.kickitout.org/Pages/FAQs/Category/history Date accessed: 11/17/2019

England vs Bulgaria

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/50050410 Date accessed: 11/17/2019

Gini Wijnaldum and Frenkie De Jong send strong anti-racism message

https://en.onefootball.com/%F0%9F%93%B8-gini-wijnaldum-and-frenkie-de-jong-send-

strong-anti-racism-message/