Racism in football: ‘Governing bodies are failing the game and must be held accountable’

– Governing bodies have ‘the power to create the course of action that many good people want to see … so we have to hold them accountable,’ Townsend tells Anadolu

– ‘It will take a lot to change … but if we have the right set of people in place, then we should be able to do that,’ says former Kick It Out official Townsend

ISTANBUL

A zero-tolerance stance against racism and discrimination in football remains a distant prospect because those running the show are failing the game, the players, and the fans, says Troy Townsend, a former chief at anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out.

Punishments are nowhere near strong enough and the people with the power to change that need to be held accountable, Townsend told Anadolu in a wide-ranging conversation on an issue he has worked on for well more than a decade, recently being honored with a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) award.

“I think the football governance, the people at the heads of the federations – FIFA, UEFA – they’re failing the game. They’re failing the players. They’re not protecting the players,” he said.

While progress has been made, particularly in England, he added, “it doesn’t matter how far we’ve come” until the issue is completely rooted out.

“We’ve still got a very long way to go until the punishments being handed out are severe, until zero tolerance,” he said.

Townsend’s words reflect a reality captured clearly in data: Kick It Out received more than 1,300 reports of racist and discriminatory incidents in the 2023-24 season in England.

This marked a grim new record for a single season, a 32% jump from the previous year, and more than double of the 610 reports in the 2021-22 season.

Across all levels of the game, there was a 47% spike in racist abuse and 34% for faith-based reports, with Islamophobia and antisemitism surging a staggering 138% and 63%, respectively.

“Racism remained the highest form of discrimination that gets reported to the organization every single time we put out our end of season results,” said Townsend, who left Kick It Out this June after almost 13 years, starting as a volunteer and bowing out as head of player engagement.

“It’s over 50% of racism within the pro game and the same in the grassroots game, which means we’ve got a problem flowing through all levels of football.”

‘Will take a lot to change’

The failure of football’s governing bodies, Townsend said, stems first and foremost from a lack of understanding of just how severely racism impacts an individual, be it a player or those around them.

“I’m talking of severe impact. I’m talking about traumatic experiences. I’m talking about those lived experiences that are very tough to relive. If you don’t understand that impact, then you’re never going to have the right sanctions to apply against it,” he continued.

This comes down to the other side of the problem, which is that “we don’t have enough people in prominent positions to be able to influence the sanctioning process.”

Penalties at the moment are too lenient, like England has a six to 12 game ban for players and bans for fans, which is not going far enough, he said.

Then there are other weak measures such as partial stadium closures, which just allows people “to create the same kind of abuse from another area,” he added.

“We’ve seen in Spain imprisonment now for the first time in their history. We’ve got to make this an approach, where right around the world, similar actions are being taken,” said Townsend, adding that it all comes down to “the people in control of the sanctions.”

“The governing bodies of the game are the people with the power to create the course of action that many good people want to see to protect people from being victimized, so we have to hold them accountable.”

The problem, he emphasized, extends beyond the playing side, with issues in stadiums and in workplace environments.

“It will take a lot to change it to move around, but if we have the right set of people in place, then we should be able to do that.”

He called for an overhaul of the current regulations, saying that sincere efforts could bear tangible results.

“I’d like to see FIFA and UEFA stripped down on the rules that they have at the moment, and create a new set of sanctioning processes that would make this game a much equal game and a much better game for people to experience,” said Townsend.

‘A massive conversation that needs to stay on the table’

For English football, Boxing Day last year marked the first time in 15 years that a Black referee officiated a Premier League game, when Sam Allison took charge of Sheffield United’s match against Luton Town.

There are 32,000 referees throughout all levels of football in England, according to the country’s Football Association (FA), but just over 8% identify as Black, Asian or mixed heritage, with the figure dropping to 4% for the professional tier.

Townsend said the situation with referees is a reflection of a problem that extends across the board in the country.

“We only have two Black managers out of 92 in professional football, so we are at an all-time low … We look at owners, management, managing directors, people in boardrooms, so these issues are not just isolated to the refereeing community and managers,” he said.

“We need to start seeing there’s loads of people who are active and who should be given positions because of their status in the game … I’d like to see us break down the barriers of Black referees, Black owners and Black board members. It’s not just an easy one-topic fix here … It’s a massive conversation that needs to stay on the table.”

For actual progress, Townsend said, there has to be a change in the mentality where the thinking is about “protecting ourselves in the face of adversity.”

“We need to actually apply the right and appropriate efforts to challenge and to end it,” he said.

“I think racism can be ended in football. I wouldn’t say it can be ended in society, but we can do so much better about eliminating it from our game, so that people can step on the field of play free from fear of actions that are meant to belittle them and degrade them.”

• Discrimination
• England
• FIFA
• Football
• Racism