Abuse in English football a 'crisis'

BBC News

10-02-2025

The level of abuse in English football has "reached crisis point", says the head of anti-discrimination body Kick It Out.The comments come after Manchester City's Khadija 'Bunny' Shaw became the latest player to be subjected to racist and misogynistic messages, following a recent Women's Super League match.Shaw pulled out of her club's League Cup semi-final to protect her mental health stemming from what Manchester City described as "disgusting treatment" after a defeat by Arsenal."It is absolutely shocking, and that's just one of a number of examples we see both online and in stadiums," said Kick It Out (KIO) chief executive Samuel Okafor."We're seeing those reports coming into us every single week."Newcastle United recently urged social media companies to do more after midfielder Joe Willock received "appalling" racist abuse on Instagram.Tamworth forward Chris Wreh was also racially abused online last month.However, Okafor hopes new online safety rules will help to tackle the issue in what he sees as "a pivotal year for driving real change across the game", in terms of both discrimination and under-representation.The Football Governance Bill - which will force clubs to show what action they are taking to meet Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) targets - is expected to come into law in the next few months.The Football Association has also made it mandatory for clubs to publish workforce data for the first time this summer, "a really big step towards transparency in the game," according to Okafor."If football can really use this moment, it can change," he added. "It's a huge opportunity to make it a more welcoming and inclusive place where people can feel that they can belong and thrive."
'Totally unacceptable' level of abuse
KIO received a record number of reports of discrimination in a single season for 2023-24, with levels of sexism, misogyny and racism all on the rise.Across all levels of English football, there were 1,332 incidents reported by the organisation - a 32% increase. Racism remained the most reported form of discrimination, with a 47% rise in abuse across all levels."These are footballers, but they're [also] real human beings, and when you see the abuse that they face, it's just totally unacceptable," said Okafor."We did a research with 1,500 women fans, and one in four still feel unsafe going to games. 52% said they experienced sexism within a stadium. So there's still a huge amount of cultural work to do to make the game more inclusive."People are feeling more freedom to share their toxic and discriminatory abuse online, in particular."But rules in the 2023 Online Safety Act, due to come into force later this year, compel social media firms to show they are removing illegal content, with the platforms given until March to implement measures or face fines."We believe that's going to give the regulator more powers to be able to hold the social media firms to account, as well as providing better user-empowerment tools," said Okafor."This is really important, because you can see the impact it has. So this is a real opportunity to tackle that. It can be a real game changer."Tech giant Meta recently announced it is abandoning the use of independent fact checkers on Facebook and Instagram, to the dismay of campaigners against hate speech online."That really does trouble me," said Okafor. "That really does make the job harder."And that's why we need the regulators to use their powers to really hold social media firms to account, and to issue those penalties."
Football must 'catch up' on diversity data
In 2020, the FA launched a voluntary Diversity Code in a bid to tackle racial inequality in the English game.However, only 53 clubs signed up to provide data on their workforce annually, and collectively they failed to meet any of the eight recruitment targets.Having admitted that progress had been "slower than hoped", the FA has made it mandatory for all professional clubs in the English game to provide full diversity workforce data on age, sex, gender, ethnicity, disability and sexual orientation within their organisation by June."We've been calling for this for a number of years," said Okafor."It may feel uncomfortable, but other industries do this on a regular basis, so it's football just trying to catch up to where it should be in terms of bringing the data into the light."The more crucial step is what happens when the data comes out."I'm really interested in seeing - do clubs reflect their communities? If they don't, there's an opportunity to ensure that they've got the relevant plans."What you can see there is clearly a lack of black coaches, of South Asian representation within football. There is a lack of diversity when it comes to match officials, in terms of boardrooms."Okafor says clubs should face fines if they fail to publish the data."We're very hopeful that all the clubs will have published their data," he added."And if not, then we'll be expecting that there should be a level of consequence as a result."This is certainly not about league tables or naming and shaming clubs. This really does drive the long-term sustainability of football."