Discrimination in Football

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. I will begin a response and ask some questions by echoing the Minister’s remarks and those in the Statement that honour the remarkable courage of the three players—Zaha, Sterling and Rose—who have stood up for proper values when it is enormously difficult to do so in the environment in which they work. They are young men and their courage needs to be commended.

Secondly, I honour the work of a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, who, with Kick It Out, has worked so hard for decades to address the questions implicit in the Statement. As a House, we should be proud that he is one of us. He is stepping down from the front line of those responsibilities, but his work has been very considerable.

I note from the Statement the various measures that are taken reactively to incidents that occurred in Montenegro, Chelsea or wherever. Of course, we must frame responses that are appropriate to incidents of that kind. I also note that there is every desire to create conditions and have a discussion with the appropriate people that will try to keep in check the outbursts that we all so much regret.

I have a question for those of us whose responsibilities overlap with the DCMS. We hear that some football club fans are using closed Facebook groups to promote racist ideology. With the publication of the Online Harms White Paper this week, will the use of this type of technology be looked at as it applies to football?

I was responsible for an activity that reached out to and included people from a vast variety of racial and ethnic groups—55 at one time—for a number of years. When I took up my responsibilities in that arena, I noticed that, with all the diversity in front of us, those of us running the show were about half a dozen very white people.

I knew then that a bigger job had to be done if we were to work away at the culture that we seek to change. I set myself a target: to diversify the leadership offered to this group within three or four years. In the end, we brought in a variety of faces from Fiji, Korea, various countries in west Africa and the Indian subcontinent. I noticed and can attest to—indeed, we measured it—the change in the nature of engagement on the part of those who had previously been talked to or over but now felt that they owned the operation.

That leads me to ask my question—which, apart from the Facebook one, is perhaps my only serious one: how do we change a culture? A culture in the support of our national game permits and encourages these subversive activities. I remember having a close association in the 1980s with those neo-fascist groups of hooligans that went round causing trouble at various football stadiums across the land. How do we change a culture and allow a diverse population to feel that it has ownership of this game, rather than it being in the hands of multimillionaires from other places? Seriously, how do we stop black players on the pitch being used, in a sense, as icons, heroes or puppets for people’s own prejudices? There is deep work to be done. We could apply what I have said to homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Changing a culture is difficult; in football, that seems to be the number one question to address.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. This is one of those happy occasions when there is a great deal of consensus in this Chamber, and possibly across the whole of government, on the fact that we must address this.

We are not talking about a new thing; we are talking about something that many of us hoped was at least in terminal decline. In fact, we are hearing an unpleasant echo of the culture of abuse in football that was a regular part of the cheering of the crowds when I was growing up. I remember being in Scotland when the first black player played in the Old Firm game and Glasgow market sold out of bananas. There is nothing new here—which is probably one of the most worrying things.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. It strikes me that we will have to get co-operation between bodies that, shall we say, cherish their independence very strongly. The Premiership, the Football League and the FA will have to work with government closely and consistently if we are to achieve the identification of those taking care of this. Indeed, the noble Lord mentioned something I had not thought about but should have done: social media. These issues are all related in making sure that things go forward.

When it comes to international groups—club football at the top level is an international game now—we will have to work with our neighbours. I hate to bring discord to the debate by echoing the previous one, but what steps are being taken to make sure that, under any circumstances, we have good links to ensure that someone cannot simply run away from the game until they get to a big international stage and then carry on this activity? If we start with racism, nationalism will not be far behind. Skin colour first, language second; it will happen. What are we doing to identify the problem? As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, pointed out, what are we doing to make sure that anybody who takes action when they feel that they are not being protected will not suffer huge penalties?

The Premiership is one of the biggest invisible earners in this country. Billions of pounds are involved. If a manager feels that his players are under threat and removes them from that environment, what are we going to do to protect him? Ultimately, it will be a manager who will do this, even if an individual player walks off. It will be a manager who has to take the brunt of it, and the club. What are we doing to protect them—what are we doing to work towards it? Until we start to take questions like that very seriously and to make sure that the whole of football—FIFA, UEFA, everybody—works together, we are not going to do this. The Government’s role in this is to co-ordinate that.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful for the comments from both noble Lords. This is something that we will find a consensus on—as the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, there was consensus across the other place on this. We all realise that it is a serious problem that needs urgent attention, and that is what we are going to bring to it. I echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, on the courage of the players I mentioned for coming forward and highlighting the issues that have affected them. Equally, the work that the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, has done in 26 years of the Kick It Out campaign has been a tremendous achievement.

On the issue of closed Facebook groups, the noble Lord will remember that on page 31 of the Online Harms White Paper is a list of harms that are in scope. Extremist material is on the list of things that are not necessarily illegal, but are harmful. That is indeed one of the things we are looking at. However, the important thing about the White Paper is not so much whether individual harms are on that indicative list, but the processes that social media companies have to go through to make sure that their users are protected. On the Facebook group, there are issues there, given that it is a private communication channel. The noble Lord will remember that that is one of the areas we are consulting on. It is important to remember that a lot of these things are illegal under the current law. Therefore it is important that the authorities use the current law to deal with them, if they are able to, so that it is not just the clubs themselves.

I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, that culture is important. One thing we are doing as a result of the round table we had on 25 February is to bring two working groups together to report before the summer, so that actions are in place before next season. The second working group is looking at some of the issues that the noble Lord was talking about, addressing the fact that, for example, BAME players make up 30% of the playing population, and yet coaches represent 7.6% of the population. We want also to look at new ideas about data collection; at more challenging targets being set; and at having more transparency in recruitment practices and other incentives, to encourage under-represented groups into careers—not just as players but in running the game as well.

Another issue that will be considered is that there is an even smaller BAME proportion among journalists, who are one of the ways in which culture is spread. People who are interested in the game learn about it and consider it through journalism. For example, Raheem Stirling has been critical of the negative perception of BAME players through the media. That is something that we want to address. I agree that culture is important. We are trying to do something about it; we will do so and report back soon.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned that these problems are not new, and he is absolutely right. We should not forget, however, that there has been a tremendous advance in the last 26 years. That is one of the reasons that we want to move quickly: we are not complacent—especially as Kick It Out has reported that there has been a rise in incidents. That is why we convened the round table and are taking it seriously. We want to take positive steps and make positive recommendations in time for next season.

On international liaison, this morning the Minister for Sport said that she will be meeting officials from UEFA and FIFA to discuss these issues. Lastly, I agree that the sanctions need to be looked at not only in terms of their seriousness, especially for the big clubs, but also whether we have got it right in, for example, fining smaller clubs for taking players off the pitch if they are suffering racial abuse. That is one issue that the working groups will look at.