Elliot Furniss 20778399

Sports and Society. 2000-word essay

Is Raheem Sterling right? Does the media treat black footballers differently?

Tackling racism in sport has been a challenge specifically targeted over the last 20 years and
whilst I’d say racism is less of a problem now than before, it certainly hasn’t been
eradicated. Racism nowadays isn’t as clear and obvious as the past, however now is often
seen in more subtle and deeply embedded ways, to the point where frequently people and
companies can get away with it. This is the problem with the media, where often they have
treated black footballers’ actions differently compared to if a white player did the same
thing. Raheem Sterling has been subject to a lot of abuse over the years from the media and
called out the wrong doings of their actions.

After being subject to racist abuse in a Premier League game vs Chelsea in December 2018,
Manchester City and England player Raheem Sterling accused the works of some British
media help to ‘fuel racism’. Sterling posted two screenshots of articles from The Daily Mail,
one berating young, black, City academy player Tosin Adarabioyo and one praising another
City academy player, Phil Foden. The Adarabioyo headline read “Young Manchester
City footballer, 20, on £25,000 a week splashes out on mansion on market for £2.25m
despite having never started a Premier League match”. This headline clearly criticizes Tosin,
somehow saying that he can’t spend the money he’d earned on things he wants. The Foden
headline read “Manchester City starlet Phil Foden buys new £2m home for his mum." No
criticism is sent Foden’s way, with the headline framing Foden as a great person for buying
his mother a home. Now, of course, this is a great thing Phil Foden did for his family,
however the house Tosin Adarabioyo brought for around the same price was also for his
family, however that information has for whatever reason been refrained from the story.
Both cases, which realistically isn’t really news at all anyways, are effectively identical,
however Sterling pointed out how the newspaper get their message across for the young
black player and then for the young white player. He said, “I think this is unacceptable, both
innocent, have not done a thing wrong but just by the way it has been worded.” You ask
yourself why they would write such a headline for one instance and such a different one for
the other and not one reason will come to mind other than, one is black, one is not.
Sterling said “The young black kid is looked at in a bad light. Which helps fuel racism and
aggressive behaviour. So, for all the newspapers that don’t understand why people are
racist in this day and age all I have to say is have a second thought about fair publicity and
give all players an equal chance.”

Raheem Sterling is one of the best and most successful English players of this century,
however for most of his career instead of being subject to the praise and plaudits he’s
received since his EURO 2020 heroics, he’s often been subject to heavy criticism and claims
from the media that almost make it seem like they were trying to tear one of England’s
brightest young footballers down. After bursting onto the scene in 2013 being a key part of
Liverpool’s title challenging attack and then starting England first game in the 2014 World
Cup vs Italy at the age of just 19, everyone was raving about Raheem. However, after
rejecting a new contract at Liverpool worth £100,000-a-week in favour of signing for
Manchester City, he received massive backlash. Sterling was critiqued for being a ‘money-
grabber’ and for being ‘greedy’. Sterling came out to say that the move had nothing to do
Elliot Furniss 20778399

with money, and in reality, it was just about winning trophies. Liverpool hadn’t won a trophy
since before he was born and had just stumbled to 6th in that previous season, whilst City
had won 2 titles in the previous 4 seasons, so that made sense. However, for that whole
summer and the season after when he had a decent but not amazing season at City, he
received major flak throughout despite still being only 20. Now when you look at an eerily
similar transfer which happened in the summer of 2021, Jack Grealish to City, you’ll start to
see where the media treat white players differently compared to black players. Grealish left
his academy club, just like Sterling, despite them offering an improved deal, like Sterling, for
a British transfer record fee, like Sterling, joining City because he wanted to win trophies,
like Sterling. It’s almost an identical transfer, however Grealish did not receive any criticism
from the media and many actually praised Grealish’s desire to want to go and play with the
best. Why didn’t Sterling get the same?

Another example of the media treating black and white players differently comes through
the response to unusual haircuts. Paul Pogba’s haircuts are subject to discussion whenever a
new one appears, and somehow have been used to criticize his performances since moving
to Manchester United. Often the media will use the haircuts to say that the former most
expensive player of all time should focus more on his game than his choice of hair,
suggesting that somehow the two activities affect one another. Of course, whatever hair
you have isn’t going to affect how well someone kicks a ball, so it comes across that these
sites just use a new haircut as an excuse to slate Paul Pogba for whatever reason. This
headline from The Sun in 2017 shows how the media use Pogba’s hair as a chance to sneak
some criticism in: ‘Manchester United star Paul Pogba has now had 20 different hairstyles
since re-joining the club last summer… and scored just eight goals’ Comparatively, white
players don’t get the same treatment. Take Phil Foden for example, and his striking bleach
blonde hair change for the Euros last year. The criticisms Pogba received were non-existent
for Phil Foden, instead everyone loved it. It wasn’t used to criticize him through the
tournament, even after a poor showing from him. The love and praise he received for the
haircut have made the haircut synonymous with Phil with The Mirror even calling it ‘iconic’
in their headline ‘Hairdresser behind Phil Foden's iconic blonde Euro 2020 look on what he
thinks of style’. Phil and Paul both are allowed to do whatever they want with their hair,
however the black player will get lambasted for it, with the media suggesting his hair shows
his attitude problems, whilst Phil gets love and praise. In these moments we see again that
some of the media go out of their way to try and drag these successful black players down
and don’t want to see them succeed.

On the eve of the 2018 World Cup, the England squad had to deal with the seemingly now
traditional controversy the media like to invent heading into a major tournament. Raheem
Sterling was again subject to major criticism after images of him in training showed a gun
tattoo on his leg. The Sun ran a headline ‘TAT'S GUN TOO FAR: England ace Raheem Sterling
sparks fury by unveiling M16 assault rifle tattoo on his leg’. The tattoo sparked fury, with
some even saying that Sterling, who had just scored 23 goals in a title winning season,
should be axed from the World Cup squad. Sterling replied, saying ‘When I was two my
father died from being gunned down to death. I made a promise to myself that I would
never touch a gun in my lifetime. I shoot with my right foot, so it has a deeper meaning and
is still unfinished’. Instead of thinking to ask Raheem what the tattoo was for, people just
jumped to the conclusion that he was glamorizing guns, even though it had been previously
Elliot Furniss 20778399

reported that his dad was shot dead in Kingston, Jamaica when Raheem was young. Also,
Sterling had gotten this tattoo 10 months prior. No one had said anything about it during
that time but then a few weeks before the biggest tournament of Raheem’s life they decide
to attack him and try and bring him down. Another player in that 2018 England squad,
Jordan Pickford, also had a tattoo of a weapon on his bod, yet no one seemed to care about
that one. The England number one has a large blade tattooed down his left forearm and
considering that knife crime in recent times has been a major issue in England and is a much
bigger problem than gun violence in England, you would think that this would cause as
much uproar as Raheem’s tattoo, yet nothing was published about that. Another case of a
black player getting treated one way, and a white player getting treated another. Raheem
went on to have a mediocre tournament, not scoring a goal despite starting upfront for 6
games so the question must be asked if all the attacks on him for a harmless tattoo which
meant a lot to him, got to him and effected his performance. Sterling said in an interview
after the tournament “I was so up for it. I thought 'this is my time now'. I had a great season
with Man City, then bang, straight negative. I had my tattoo for 10 months and just before I
go to the World Cup a story comes out that I have a gun on my foot. I've had this tattoo for
10 months, why at this moment in time?" he added "I went that summer, and I was
overthinking all the negative press that I had” Why would the media actively try to attack
one of England’s best players going into a tournament we could’ve won. As Gary Lineker
tweeted at the time, it was ‘weird, unpatriotic and sad’.

I think Raheem Sterling is right in saying that the media treats black players differently and
there has been numerous examples to back this up. Often, it’s just the littlest things these
black players do that brings them criticism from the media that just wouldn’t happen if they
were white. These criticisms often come from newspapers aimed at the common public,
such as The Daily Mail and The Sun, which are less about real, important news and more
about drama. So perhaps this means that these newspapers attack these black players
because they think their readers will get more of a response to these stories because they
are black. They know that these stories aren’t newsworthy, but because the player is black,
they know it’ll create drama and get more clicks because unfortunately a large amount of
people in this country are still racist. They do it subtlety enough that they continue to get
away with it, and that is extremely unfortunate and needs to change.

Word count: 1800

References:
The Guardian. 2018. Raheem Sterling accuses media of ‘fuelling racism’ after alleged abuse. [online]
Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/dec/09/raheem-sterling-newspapers-
fuelling-racism-alleged-abuse-chelsea>
The Independent. 2015. Raheem Sterling on rejecting a new Liverpool contract: 'I'm not
a money-grabber'. [online] Available at:
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/raheem-sterling-transfer-news-
liverpool-winger-claims-i-m-not-a-moneygrabber-after-rejecting-new-contract-to-fuel-
talk-of-a-move-10150690.html
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/5061446/manchester-united-star-paul-pogba-
has-now-had-20-different-hairstyles-since-rejoining-the-club-last-summer-and-scored-just-
eight-goals/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hairdresser-behind-phil-fodens-iconic-24485411
Elliot Furniss 20778399

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/6397808/raheem-sterling-m16-assault-rifle-tattoo/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/extra/4zN9dbtAvd/raheem-sterling