Birmingham players Troy Deeney and Neil Etheridge have called for more to be done about racism in football, with the striker comparing the culture inside the pitch to the movie ‘The Purge’.
Deeney was racially assaulted by one of Birmingham’s supporters last month, while goalkeeper Etheridge also faced racism from the stands in a recent game against Blackburn.
The couple sat down with Sky Sports News’ Miriam Walker-Khan to discuss recent incidents and why tougher sentences are needed for perpetrators.
Deeney said when fans gather inside stadiums, they feel like they can do whatever they want – like ‘The Purge’, a movie in which people can commit crimes for 12 hours without being punished.
“I think the reason why it’s so important and the reason why we’ve come together in terms of what we’re trying to do to shed light, it’s not a black issue, it’s not an Asian problem – it’s a problem of discrimination on all levels,” Deeney explained to Sky Sports News.
“We also try to marginalize it. Speaking of race, everyone thinks it only happens to black players, but it doesn’t. It happens to people from different backgrounds, it happens to working women, all these different things.
“But it’s like we’re trying to separate the fillers and the little things, so we never get to the root cause. So the reason we feel so powerful about it is that if we come together and make the same noises, more people are involved, more eyes and ears on this and also different ethnicities are recorded as well.
Troy Deeney has spoken out about racism in football before
“We [Deeney and Etheridge] I’ve spoken about it personally, but the culture of football right now, or not right now, since maybe the 70s, is ‘The Purge’.
“You walk into a football pitch, all the rules of society are out the window, we can say what we want, we can do what we want because it happened in football.
“But then you turn it around and a footballer’s responsibility now is to be a role model, to help charities, to be the best of the best, and by the way, to do that in an environment where everything the world doesn’t have to act with consequences for you or your family. I don’t know of any other line of work where this happens.
Deeney reiterated his point about marginalization when he also discussed online abuse, saying many perceive racial discrimination as only happening on social media platforms, rather than in the stands.
Bukayo Saka was one of the players to suffer racist abuse online after England’s Euro 2020 final loss
He added: “Since the George Floyd situation and the amount of online abuse the three guys received from England at Euro [Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho were racially abused online after missing penalties in the Euro 2020 final]we all seem to think it’s online abuse now.
“We’ve marginalized it again – it only happens there, so those players just have to turn off notifications. It’s always the individual who should do something, not the person or people who decided that they were going to be abusive or whatever.” .
“Again, where is the responsibility of the other person? Apparently footballers are all very overpaid or uneducated and dumb role models? Our children shouldn’t watch footballers.
“On the other hand, we should be role models and we should take the higher level from a moral point of view and the person who has been immature, who has not been educated or who has been rude at times is fine because that person is doing a normal job and that person is It’s so backward and the mentality in this country needs to change.
Neil Etheridge recently faced racism in the stands while playing for Birmigham
Etheridge – who is British Filipino – is also keen to shed light on racism towards a wide range of ethnicities.
He added: “We are now at a stage where it [reporting racism in football] is a long process. It’s not easy to stop a football game.
“My incident happened in the rulebook, basically, and the most frustrating thing for me afterwards is how many times can we have this conversation or is it going to be swept under the carpet. This is the seriousness of this subject.
“When Troy and I spoke, he did a lot for black and mixed-race players. He said ‘how many times has this happened to an Asian player or a half-Asian player?’. I can’t even remember from the last time. if there was, it’s not recent, but it’s now educating people about all kinds of racism, not just certain topics.”
“We need guidelines on racism and stick to them”
Both Deeney and Etheridge have called for better rules and guidelines on racism in football and proper implementation. They believe that if one person is penalized for doing so, it can help deter others.
Etheridge said: “If people know the punishment you know what you’re getting into, but if you’re going to say something and roll the dice you can get away with it. And then all of a sudden it’s going around this part of the stadium and this part of the fan base.
“The next person might do it until there’s something in the rulebook written of ‘this is what’s going to happen’, then people will know exactly what the punishment will be if they do it. and get caught. I think it’s going to crash it’s collapsing massively.”
Deeney also pointed to recent incidents involving fans on the pitch, which, although accompanied by a hefty fine, often go unimplemented. He describes the current guidelines regarding racism as “desirable”.
“We’re so reactive in football, it’s a joke. In so many other areas we’re proactive, we’re ahead, we push it and that’s why we seem so passionate,” he said. declared.
“But why do we always have to come to the worst case scenario? We had it here in Birmingham where a fan ran onto the pitch and hit Jack Grealish. Everyone said ‘this is the worst thing that can happen “. What has really changed has been stopping people from stepping onto football pitches.
“We’re not saying these are easy fixes, but what does it have to be? We’ve had a slew of them in the last year with the number of people who have gone out into the field. People said ‘ it’s a very bad thing, we can’t have people on the pitch”. But nothing has changed to stop it. So if you’re a fan and you’re going to do it, what will is it going to happen Nothing is the answer.
“You see on the side of the turnstiles, if you encroach on the pitch it will be a £5,000 fine. How many people have already been hit with a £5,000 fine that we have heard of? What I say , it’s get a rule, get a guideline, stick to it.
“We live in a world where there is an energy crisis and the cost of living has skyrocketed. You hit a person with a fine just for this kind of incident and I guarantee the next 20 people who hear about it talk go ‘I can’t afford it’.
“So it’s a deterrent, but there’s no deterrent to being racist online, there’s no deterrent to being racist inside the stadium and there’s no There is no deterrent to being racist on a football pitch.
“It’s all ‘go to the referee, report it and we’ll find out after’. It’s all tasteless and there are no clear guidelines on what it is if you decide to roll the dice.”
Troy Deeney and Neil Etheridge sat down with Sky Sports News’ Miriam Walker-Khan to discuss racism in football following recent incidents involving Birmingham players.
Etheridge also concludes that his recent experience of racism on a soccer field has prompted him to advocate more for tougher penalties.
“I wouldn’t do anything different. I’m keeping exactly the same as what I did, but it probably proved to me even more to make more noise about it and more punishments, more punishments Severe measures must be inflicted on this situation.
“Things have to be spelled out in black and white – that’s what happens if you know racial abuse is happening to one of the players. And eventually what will happen is the players will come together, again louder, louder. It’s slowly starting to happen a little bit more, as you can see.”
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