"At some point we probably need to grow up and agree what we will and will not allow in our football grounds. Right now, anything goes, except for racist, anti-Semitic and — but seemingly only if Rangers or Celtic are playing — sectarian abuse. And, at some point, we need to ask ourselves why we ban certain speech in football grounds. Is it to make some sort of social statement? Is it simply a commercial decision, to make our stadiums more inviting and pleasant? Is it to make ourselves feel better?
"Increasingly, much of the anti-racist stuff in the mainstream media is motivated primarily by the latter two. Nothing wrong with that, of course, unless it lulls us into a false sense of achievement, a sort of "pat-on-the-back" self-congratulatory attitude which leads us to ignore the reality that racial prejudice — if not outright racism — is real and all around us."
Episode Eighty Six of the Blizzard Podcast revisits Gabriele Marcotti’s ‘The Race Card’ from Issue Three, originally published in December 2011, which tackles the tricky subject of abuse in our stadiums, and the double standards that sometimes surround it.
This article contains some language that may not be appropriate to all listeners, so discretion is advised.
