Jess Carter's statement is a reminder that Black footballers should not have to solve racism

New York Times

6 days ago

Maybe you felt, as I did, that lurch of anxiety when Jess Carter's errors led to Sweden's goals last Thursday, knowing what happens when Black players make mistakes for England in major tournaments.
It didn't matter that the Lionesses had come back to win the 2025 European Championship quarter-final match in penalties.
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Perhaps you felt the same unease when Lauren James missed her penalty in the shootout, and a measure of gratitude when England made it through to the semi-finals that her error wasn't decisive.
For me, that unsettling feeling returned on Friday morning due to the erasure of Michelle Agyemang, the 19-year-old who scored England's equaliser to force extra time at what is her first Euros. Some major news reports and the online discussion focused on Lucy Bronze's endurance and Chloe Kelly's shin pads over Agyemang's significant contribution.
And how could you feel anything other than discomfort witnessing Germany's Kathrin Hendrich yank the hair of France's Griedge Mbock during a set piece, knowing the cultural prejudices and sensitivities surrounding Black women's hair?
It has all made for a dispiriting — though not surprising — end to the quarter-finals, culminating in Carter addressing the abuse she has faced online by taking a step back from social media.
The Lionesses announced on Sunday that they will no longer take the knee before matches — they were one of only a handful of teams at this tournament to do so in the first place — explaining that the racial abuse directed at Carter demonstrated that doing so was ineffective.
The team, along with many other clubs around the world, took up taking a knee in protest of racism and police brutality after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. The gesture follows that done by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 2016 when he knelt during the traditional playing of the U.S National Anthem before his game, protesting racial injustice.
Between their shared statement and Bronze's press conference, England players and staff implored the powers that be to do more. They enter their semi-final against Italy with a heightened sense of purpose and, as is often the way in women's sport, a dual mission.
Questions around Carter's wellbeing and statement dominated a sober, subdued press conference in Geneva yesterday, where Bronze revealed that the players had met on Saturday evening to discuss their next course of action and made the group decision to no longer take the knee.
'Is the message as strong as it used to be?' Bronze asked. 'Is the message really hitting hard? Because to us, it feels like it's not if these things are still happening to our players in the biggest tournaments of their lives.'
The conversation then turned to the responsibility of social media platforms where Carter faced much of the abuse — 'it feels like there can be a place where we can control abuse online, especially racism online, because everything's monitored online,' Bronze said, 'so it just doesn't make sense to us' — and in doing so underlined the sad irony of all this: that players, especially Black players who speak on their own experiences of racist abuse, must endure the emotional labour of exposing themselves publicly to beg social media companies to relinquish them of the responsibility of doing so.
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It was never their job, but has become so because of the inertia of those companies. And only if those Black players, and their allies, expend the energy to ignite action will they ever be unburdened.
Former England international Anita Asante shared a post supporting Carter, saying that it should not fall on Black and Brown people to answer the problem of racism. She wrote, 'Nothing will be done until it hits the powers that govern the game financially.'
Enough is enough. pic.twitter.com/wjox7mq3AB
— Anita Asante (@NicenNeetz) July 20, 2025
This, of course, goes beyond X and Meta. Football clubs and governing bodies must diversify their boardrooms. Everyone, from managers to scouts to fans to commentators and football writers, must check their own biases and resist racial profiling.
In 2023, the third annual report on the FA's Football Leadership Diversity Code found that among its participating clubs in the 2022-23 season, '9 per cent of senior leaders, 11 per cent of team operations, 16 per cent of coaches and 9 per cent of senior coaches hired were Black, Asian or mixed heritage, whilst 23 per cent of senior leaders and 30 per cent of team operations hired were female'. In the same group, 13 per cent of coaches and 11 per centof senior coaches are Black, Asian or mixed heritage.
Where organisations have tended to react, they must be proactive in assuring Black women and girls that football is safe for them.
According to Kick It Out, a UK-based organisation focused on tackling all forms of discrimination in football, racism continues to be the most reported discrimination, with a 47 per cent (496 to 731) rise in racist abuse across all levels of the game during the 2023-34 season. There was also a 22 per cent increase (111 to 143) in reports at the youth level.
In their joint actions Sunday, the Lionesses sought the balance of protecting their abused players without speaking over them. The decision to stand before matches was, Bronze said, 'driven by the group' with 'certain individuals' contributing 'more than others', but was a decision reached 'as a collective', which points towards a group-wide allyship.
The FA held meetings with players before the tournament to discuss online abuse, given the increasing profile of the women's game, and has security working to try to identify the people behind the abuse.
'We know that the people higher up are the ones who can ultimately put in things to make change, but I think we're never helpless as players,' Bronze continued. 'We know that our voice is loud enough to be heard by people around the world — whether it's social media platforms, whether it's the federations, UEFA, FIFA, whoever it is.
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'I think that's something that we're very proud of as a Lioness team: we've created this voice and this platform where we can reach the highest of heights and we're keen to use that platform and that voice to make a difference. The sentiment of taking the knee and standing — as small as it might seem to other people — I think the noise will be heard around the world.'
What passed unspoken was the knowledge that some corners of the world are not filled with willing or understanding ears. In that climate, it is easy to feel hopeless.
The former England striker and now pundit Eni Aluko, who won a defamation case this year against the former footballer Joey Barton after receiving abuse online, suggested in a video posted to Instagram that players take legal action. Hitting organisations financially and commercially is the 'only way' to effect change, she said.
'It's a viable legal option for players, collectively, to sue the online platforms,' Aluko said. 'I know it's a viable legal option because I've spoken to the online platforms, who are aware of what they need to do to make sure racism does not keep showing up on their platforms. I think that option needs to be explored because the only way these people listen, these platforms listen, is if their pockets are hit.
'It's not a secret that I use the rule of law in the UK to hold people to account. And it works. Guys, it works. It changes behavior.
'When someone is facing damages, whether it's an individual or a company, they quickly change their policies. That's the only way, because we're doing way too much talking and there's not enough action. Way too many statements, way too much outrage. It doesn't change anything.'
Bronze, meanwhile, asked us to consider a world where social media platforms lose the presence of footballers altogether. 'No player needs social media. I think that's one thing that we can always remember,' she said. 'I think that's something that the platforms should be very aware of: nobody needs social media if you want to carry on in sport. We can thrive without it.'
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However, that would be a financial hit for many. Would the more commercially-minded footballers be willing to forgo their earnings from sponsored posts and brands? And what of the financial hit on Black footballers who have already paid such a high price?
The conundrum highlights again why solving all this should never have been the responsibility of players in the first place.