Anti-racism initiatives in football should be applauded, but it's only scratching the surface
The press lounge at a Premiership ground one evening a few years ago. Journalists gathered for a midweek game are looking at a TV screen that is replaying goals from the previous weekend. Dwight Yorke scores against a team supported by one of those watching, who walks up to the screen and says loudly, in mock indignation: “Yorke, you black twat!” In the wake of last month’s friendly in Madrid, the journalist in question was one of many who set about suggesting various forms of action that might be taken against Spain for the Bernabéu crowd’s racial abuse of black England players. It is fair to assume, then, that he has long since seen the error of his ways.