Despite an entertaining Euro 2012 and an exhilarating domestic season that culminated in an extraordinary finale that saw Manchester City crowned Premier League champions for the first time, the past twelve months have not always been a fantastic advertisement for football. Enthralling matches have often taken a back seat, as stories of racism on and off the field have made their way onto both the front and back pages. Following the latest string of incidents that have taken place over the last two months or so, an organisation has started to involve itself in various matters concerning racism in football – and not without controversy.
The Society of Black Lawyers (SBL), founded in 1969, has divided opinion for several reasons. One argument against the society is that, by its very nature, the SBL is promoting a form of segregation. A ‘Society of White Lawyers’ would of course be viewed as an exclusive organisation with no rightful place in a world where all races should be treated equally.
The SBL’s recent actions have come under scrutiny: it called for referee Mark Clattenburg to be suspended from duty after allegedly using ‘inappropriate language’ towards John Obi Mikel, despite the fact that both assistant referees, and indeed the fourth official, gave the referee their full support. Following the incident, former referee Clive Wilkes said that some referees felt that they had come under so much pressure that they were considering boycotting Chelsea matches, so the SBL’s decision to involve itself seems to have served only to further fuel the tension between referees and clubs without really having much of a meaningful influence.
The SBL has also had its say in a debate that dates back to the origins of another London club, Tottenham Hotspur. The SBL chairman, Peter Herbert, has stated that he will contact the police if Spurs fans continue to chant using the controversial term ‘Yid’ and its variants. However, many fans have argued that the term is used as an affectionate nickname to support the Jewish communities situated in the Tottenham area. An official club statement read:
“Our fans adopted the chant as a defence mechanism in order to own the term and thereby deflect anti-Semitic abuse. Our position on this topic is very clear. The club does not tolerate any form of racist or abusive chanting.
“[Spurs fans] do not use the term to others to cause any offence, they use it a chant amongst themselves.”
Herbert was quick to shun the argument that a ‘defence mechanism’ is an acceptable way of justifying such chanting, but the argument that he put forward seems to hold little weight itself:
“If you had a group of Afro-Caribbean supporters using the ‘N-word’, even as a ‘defence mechanism’, it would clearly be completely unacceptable.”
Acceptable or not, the fact is that the ‘N-word’ is indeed used by Afro-Caribbean people, along with various other ethnicities, across the country, as an informal term of endearment. Furthermore, it has been a regular component – some would say even a basis – of black music culture for decades, and this continues to be the case today. To suggest that the usage of such a word is ‘completely unacceptable’ states that there is no context in which the word could be deemed inoffensive, and this blanket approach to racism has been seen as naïve and simplistic by the SBL’s critics, who argue that the Spurs fans’ chanting is not anti-Semitic due to the context behind it.
Over the last twelve months there have been a host of racial offences in the world of football. Some of the more straightforward examples (such as Chelsea captain John Terry calling QPR defender Anton Ferdinand ‘f***ing black c**t’, a fan hurling a banana at Anzhi Makhachkala defender Christopher Samba, and Chelsea fan Gavin Kirkham making monkey gestures at Manchester United’s Danny Welbeck) are easy to identify, and the fact that the perpetrators need punishment is clear.
However, in trying to fight its cause – noble as it may be – the SBL has chosen to involve itself in some of the more ambiguous cases, which has left the public with mixed feelings about the organisation, which some say should not exist at all. Although it has succeeded in further bringing racism in football to the public’s attention, whether it has really done anything of influence remains to be seen.
Tim Hellyer
exeposedev 