Bla bla Blatter!

The awful truth surrounding the comments of FIFA chief Sepp Blatter, like so many issues around race, are pretty complex.

 
It is almost surreal that our own Prime Minister  David Cameron comes out attacking the FIFA chiefs' comments as ‘appalling’ and ‘out of touch’.  He along with the chorus of other detractors is  right of course, Blatter’s comments are offencive , and shockingly out of touch. However, it is breathtakingly duplicitous to point the finger at others when, for example, neither our  Prime Minister nor other Ministers of State, including the Minister for Race, Andrew Stunnel  has uttered a solitary word about the persistent subtle and not so subtle racism that blights so many Black peoples lives.

A few examples:

    We pride ourselves just how far we have come in dealing with racism in football. And its true, big improvements have been made, but even putting aside the on-going cases of John Terry and Luis  Suarez, many Black footballers who writes in newspapers or blogs will confer that as quick as a blink of the eye the most rabid racism, including death threats  is never far away.

    A Government department has 30  jobs that only ‘senior’ people can apply for. 40% of those applicants are BME. What percentage would you expect to get through? 50-30-20-10? Actually none got through,  not one.

    And lastly, we are all familiar with the police stop and search figures, for example, you are 26 times more likely to be stopped and searched than a white person. Often, the Government and the police response is that they are targeting ‘crime hotspots’, but the same figures apply in rural parts of England where there are no ‘crime hotspots’. 

The other  sad element about  FIFA and Sepp  Blatter is that his vice like grip of football’s governing body is, in no small measure, because FA delegates from African and Caribbean counties seem to have personally benefited from this mutual patronage. Why should these delegates worry about racism in football whilst their collusion enriches them beyond their wildest dreams?

Blatter is wrong, out of touch and should go. Worse still if you think things are bad here, don’t even think about what occurs on mainland Europe, particularly the further east you go.  However, critics such as our Prime Minister  David Cameron will appear  opportunistic,  jumping on a populist band wagon, whilst they are  ignoring critical areas that they- the Prime Minister -does have the power to do something about.

Simon Woolley

Picture: Sepp Blatter