Racism in Football
Debate between Nigel Adams and Baroness Chapman of Darlington(5 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Nigel Adams
I completely agree with the hon. Lady. The forfeiture of games and other such measures are clearly matters for the football authorities, not the Government; that is absolutely correct. None the less, we need to be absolutely clear that our very strongly held view is that no measure should be taken off the table.
Jenny Chapman (Darlington) (Lab)
I do not mind admitting that I am not a fan of football, but I am very proud of the fact that the world’s first black professional football player played for my home town in Darlington. What shocked me the most this morning on hearing about all this were the comments of the Bulgarian manager. It just seems to me that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) rightly said, we will make no progress on this while the first reaction of people in positions of leadership, responsibility and influence in the game, such as managers, is to minimise and deny what has happened.
Nigel Adams
I, too, was shocked by the Bulgarian coach’s response. It was as though none of this had happened: he had not seen it; he had not heard it; and he shrugged his shoulders. It was rather incredible. That does not help when we are trying to erase this evil from the game. I was very encouraged by the comments of the Bulgarian Prime Minister. I do not think that there was much more that we could have asked him to say or do. The fact is he may consider taking away funding from the Bulgarian FA unless its president loses his job. I am very grateful to him for his remarks.