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Football FanCast recently held a series of interviews with former England and Liverpool winger John Barnes, who was speaking on behalf of bookmaker comparison platform BonusCodeBets.co.uk
In part one of our conversation with Barnes, he discussed Liverpool’s current title credentials and reflected upon his own experiences of being a key part of the last Liverpool side to win a league title.
Barnes is also remembered as one of the most high-profile black footballers of his generation. Along with Viv Anderson, Barnes was one of only two black players to have been included in the England squad that travelled to Mexico for the 1986 World Cup.
This season has seen a number of high-profile incidents of racial abuse occurring at Premier League grounds. A banana skin was thrown at Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whilst Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling was also subjected to abuse at Stamford Bridge.
Is this a problem that never actually went away?
“Yes. It’s a problem in society and I’ve said it for the last 20 years, as long as racism exists in society then it exists in all walks of society, which football is a part of. Because there’s been a directive to ban people if they’re engaging in racist chanting, they’ve kept their mouths shut. Now they’re opening their mouths again. So I never felt it went away.
“Maybe people felt a little bit complacent in showing their true colours because they knew they’d get kicked out of matches, but in the heat of the moment people say things. They’re not the only ones and that’s not the only time it’s happened, it’s been happening throughout. It’s happened at lower division games, it’s happened at games that aren’t high-profile. Now it’s happened in a high-profile game – with Raheem Sterling – so it’s mentioned. But at every single game, I should imagine, there will have been some kind of abuse if there were black players playing.
“I suppose people now are reporting it more, whereas probably they didn’t report it over the years because they didn’t think it was important, and now people are reporting it. I don’t think it’s necessarily getting worse than it ever was.”
Be sure to check out the incredible story of the man who rose from a Tanzanian refugee camp to become one of Australia’s biggest football stars in the video below…
Some people might think things have got better in the last 10 or 15 years…
“I don’t know why people would think that. What goes on in society has not got better, so why should football be any different?
“Football isn’t different to society and if you look at incidences of discrimination in society we still haven’t gotten any better, so why should football? What they’ve done is they’ve kept it quiet.
“So, what are we trying to do? Are we trying to get rid of racism or do we just not want to hear it? All football can do is make people not say it, which means that you can keep your mouth shut but be as racist as you want, but people just won’t hear it. Then people think it has gone away.
“No, it hasn’t gone away. So, every now and again, when people can’t control themselves, they say things that they’ve probably been thinking for the last ten years but they haven’t said.”
In terms of the authorities, do they have a responsibility to do more?
“The clubs can do nothing. How can a club change a racist’s ideas if he’s a racist? What can the club do? The club’s say ‘keep your mouth shut when you’re in our stadium’, but apart from that, how are they going to change that man’s perception? [Perceptions can only change] through education, and people understanding why they’re racist in the first place.
“The clubs and the authorities can’t change grown men’s ideas and perceptions of other people. That’s not what they’re there to do. What they can do is govern their house by saying ‘if we hear anything, then we will ban you or kick you out, or arrest you.’ They can’t change the perception that, if you are racist, you have. Society has to do that, not football clubs or football players or football managers.”
Can the media play a greater role in changing these perceptions?
“Of course. Raheem [Sterling] mentioned the fact that he feels that they have an influence. The media do influence peoples’ perceptions. I’m not talking about with footballers, I’m talking about in life. You read about Muslim grooming gangs or Jamaican Yardie drug dealers – but if they’re white, they don’t say white grooming gangs or English drug dealers.
“The media has a role in influencing peoples’ perceptions of other cultures. That is much more impactful than anything football does. This stuff is in the media every day.”
Is that different media treatment something you experienced as well, in your own playing days?
“I didn’t experience more than the normal man in the street. That’s the thing everybody experienced. That’s what I’m saying, we cannot compartmentalise it and say ‘in football it’s like this but in society it’s not.’ I’m no different to anybody else in society, any other black man walking down the street who is racially disenfranchised.
“So, yes, it’s high-profile, so we know about it in football or maybe with John Barnes, but it happens everyday for black people in their lives and I am one of them. It’s no different for me than with anybody else.
“The most important thing is not to focus on Raheem Sterling being abused, or John Barnes, but to focus on what’s going on in the inner-cities if we really want to get rid of racism. Until we get rid of that kind of racism, that effects the average man in the street, you’ll always have it in football.”
In part three of Football FanCast’s interview with Barnes, he discusses England’s World Cup run in Russia and reflects upon his own career at international level.
