'Progress is being made' in tackling racism in football, Premier League CEO says
The head of the Premier League has said there has been "progress" in the effort to stamp out racism in football after Jess Carter was subject to abuse during the 2025 Euros.
Speaking to ITV News, Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters said: "I don't think any professional footballer from any walk of life should have to face abuse like that."
He said efforts to stamp it out continues, but he cited the recently implemented Online Safety Act, and work with social media platforms to introduce new tools to clamp down on its proliferation on the internet.
But he said: "It's not a complete piece of work yet."
Carter suffered a torrid time during the tournament after being targeted by racial abuse online, which forced her off social media.
She was dropped for the semi-final when the Lionesses decided not to 'take the knee' in protest of her treatment online, but she was reinstated for the final against Spain.
Speaking to ITV News, Carter said she was scared to play the final, which she said was a first for her.
"I think it was a mixture of such a big game, but then on top of that, [I was] scared of whatever abuse might come with it, whether it's football-based or whether it was going to be the racial abuse that was going to come with it because I did something wrong," she said.
Carter said the abuse she received "makes you feel really small".
"It makes you feel like you're not important, that you're not valuable," she added. 'It makes you second-guess everything that you do - it's not a nice place to be. It doesn't make me feel confident going back onto the pitch.'
She said she feared teammate Lauren James would suffer "astronomical" racist abuse if she had been the only England played to miss a penalty in the quarter final against Sweden.
Carter said she felt "relief" when some of her white teammates also missed.
"It's horrible to say but it's almost like a sigh of relief when other players that weren't black missed a penalty, because the racism that would have come with LJ [Lauren James] being the only one that missed would have been astronomical," she added.
"It's not because we want them to fail - it's about knowing how it's going to be for us [black England players] if we miss."
Carter said during the tournament she would take a step back from social media because of the abuse.
She said: "From the start of the tournament I have experienced a lot of racial abuse.
"Whilst I feel every fan is entitled to their opinion on performance and result I don't agree or think it's ok to target someone's appearance or race."
Former Leicester City player Wes Morgan told ITV News that they believe the social media giants are not doing enough to stop it on their platform.
He said: "Players want to express their opinion without the consequence of being abused, and I think that's where social media needs to do more to focus on the perpetrators and ban them on the platforms."
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