FA director Heather Rabbatts interviewed for Telegraph - “Liverpool found themselves a lone voice"

John Terry had to be removed as England captain, says FA director Heather Rabbatts

Heather Rabbatts’s introduction to the Football Association board has not been a gentle one. At her first board meeting, the first woman to take a seat round the Wembley table found the toxic issue of John Terry’s England captaincy top of the agenda.

View from the top: Heather Rabbatts is the first woman to be appointed to the FA board Photo: GEOFF PUGH

(First published at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk)

Even for a businesswoman with Rabbatts’s breadth of experience it was a challenging start to a new role.

Having been appointed as one of two independent non-executive directors — businessman Roger Devlin is the other — she might have anticipated a quieter initiation. But where some might have taken a softly-softly approach while they got their feet under the table, Rabbatts had no hesitation.

Once Terry’s trial on charges of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand was adjourned until after Euro 2012, in her mind the FA’s course was obvious. Informed by her heritage — she is of mixed race, born to a Jamaican mother — and her diverse business background, she argued that Terry’s captaincy was untenable.

If chairman David Bernstein had any doubts about standing Terry down, Rabbatts’s counsel would have helped ease it.

As a result she is associated with the most contentious decision the FA has taken in some time, but there are no regrets. It was, she says, a matter of leadership.

“It is not rocket science, given who I am, that this was an issue that I would feel strongly about,” she says, in her first extensive interview since taking the FA role."

“The principle of innocent until proven guilty is absolutely paramount. But in other walks of life, if an employee who carries additional reputational responsibilities is subject to charges, they are suspended."

“Given the FA’s policies and priorities, and given the reputation that the England captain absolutely has to stand by, it was not appropriate for him to be captain. I think the board and in particular the chairman showed leadership. It is a decision the board can stand by.”

Leadership is a theme of conversation with Rabbatts, who has wide experience from a diverse career.

Her CV includes spells as chief executive of Lambeth Council, deputy chairman of Millwall, and directorships at the BBC, the Bank of England, the Royal Opera House, Crossrail and her own media company Shed Media.

This mix of experience, and a lifetime’s interest in football from grass-roots to the professional game, including a long commitment to anti-racism campaign Kick It Out, led the FA to appoint her.

“English football is a pretty heady cocktail. It comprises business dynamics, it is a massive entertainment industry, it is a national passion and it is political. I am strange in that I have worked in all those different sectors."  

“I felt I brought a pretty unique skill-set in terms of what the FA is trying to achieve. I am also a woman and I am mixed race. So I think I bring an additional lens.”

Inevitably in a season scarred by racist incidents, her perspective on the issue is informative. She is encouraged by the progress the English game has made, but says more has to be done.
Liverpool’s at times blind support for Luis Suárez dismayed her, though diplomacy restricts her to a limited comment.

“Liverpool found themselves a lone voice, and the fact they found themselves a lone voice says it all. But the reaction to Suárez and other incidents demonstrates how committed many millions of fans are to stamp this out.”
She identifies the double-edged sword of social media as an area of concern:

“Social media is a fantastic way of connecting to people, but some black players are being racially abused because people think they are anonymous on Twitter. The chants on the terraces are not replaced by abuse on social media, but it is creeping in. You can’t stop moving [on racism] because it changes.”

Increasing diversity at the top of English football, particularly among the next generation of coaches, will be a priority. Her logic for broadening the talent pool is not ideological but practical.

“There was a time when great English managers managed European clubs. Jose Mourinho learned his trade under a great English manager [Sir Bobby Robson]. It is almost impossible to imagine that happening today.

One of my objectives is to ensure that we have the calibre of coaches and future managers who are in demand. To do that you have to have the best of talent, and that talent comes from all different parts of this country.

There are precious few candidates that one talks about for very senior high-profile jobs. Wouldn’t it be nice in future to say we have the choice of five or 10 candidates for those roles?”

Selecting the next occupant of the highest profile job of all, England manager, is the next major decision for the FA board. Rabbatts is clear that whoever it is should be English, or at least appreciate the particular dynamics of the English game.

“It is preferable [to have an English manager] though we don’t rule out someone who isn’t. But it is important that it is someone who understands the English DNA of the game. Each country has its own culture. We have ours, and it’s a massive part of this country’s psyche, so you do have to get it.”

Of course there would have been no appointment to make had the board, influenced in part by Rabbatts, not taken such decisive action over Terry, prompting Fabio Capello to walk. Despite the unintended consequences, she stands by it.

“You make the right decisions for the right reasons. Ultimately what it comes back to is leadership, and the chairman and this board making the right decisions for the good of the game. We stand by it, and we move forward.”

The new and emerging face of racial discrimination - by Gloria Hyatt MBE

Oldham FC player Tom Adeyemi allegedly being racially abused at the FA cup tie by a Liverpool FC fan in Anfield

I struggle like many in the modern age to pin point exactly when I am being confronted by racism, due to the new and emerging subtleties and sophistication involved in the act of racism. The linking of historical atrocities to the continued importance of economic and cultural factors in today’s societies is becoming increasingly blurred as we are now forced to analyse the use of characters, who (Pepe Reina, for example) now feature in reinforcing negative 'black' stereotypes  in an attempt to be humorous and sell a product.

 First we must contextualise and understand, in both Spain and most of Latin America it is a cultural norm that the lighter your skin tone, in terms of your blackness, the greater your status is. Greater, is also, the likelihood, that you will find a brown skinned person, (who in the UK, would be considered by many, as black and of African heritage), undermining a darker skinned person. The Suarez comment, supported by his countries (Uruquay) president, “I don’t speak to Black people” is a high profile case that demonstrates this point.

The depiction of Pepe Reina, in the Groupama Seguros –Insurance company advert, being given to the blackened up African king, for sexual purposes  with Pepe a brown skinned man who’s name equates to queen in his county, being presented by the black man, demonstrates this reality also. The blacking up of white men, imitating what is heard as an African accent, in the advert, with Reina, harks back to a time, when black African people were not considered to represent anything beyond what was considered to be an 'uncivilized' African culture. And to add further, not considered fit to be true representatives of their entire or positively civilized African cultural identity.



Groupama commercial

 In the advert we are shown the white and blackened up representative and its brown skinned queen, supposedly all in good humour. This level of subtle racism, may escape the historical memory of those who know better, or the informed or educated mind who wish to understand better. It cannot however and should not escape any one of us, that such choice of words, representations of a identity, culture, ethnicity and actions, only serve to portray all things black and African as less than, undesirable and something to be laughed at.

What disturbs me most, as a woman of African heritage, who has the skin colouring of both Suarez and Reina, is the connection both these incidents have to the city of Liverpool, its football club and the long established residency of people like me who have an African heritage.  A community of people, who now, may be visibly described, as white skinned or light brown skinned, brown eyed or blue eyed, fair haired or blond haired people. A group of people incidentally, that in my father's Jamaican culture was known as being able to 'pass’ or in my mother’s Irish culture known by the ethnic slur of ‘blackie or darkie.’  

Simply speaking it was and is still perceived in many cities and countries around the world, that people who fit this description are more acceptable to white culture and people, given a higher status, and at times able to bypass racism. In addition it was believed this could be used for their own ends in some of the ways we have seen it played out in Spain and the Latin American countries and more recently the two players in Liverpool Football Club through Suarez and Reina.

LFC seem determined to not acknowledge the role, their cultural practices and their ethics has had in what has been a catalogue of errors in their management of issues around race and racism. They seem uninterested in admitting to their error, let alone apologizing, understanding or learning from it. 

 It will be at humanities peril, mentally, physically, emotionally and economically, especially for the descendents of African people if we ignore or minimize the reality of this new and emerging form of racial discrimination, A discrimination, packaged as an acceptable cultural norm, that one should dismiss, consider as humorous or just part of LFC’s acceptable culture that should go unchallenged.

This abuse is an affront to the proud tradition of racial integration and cohesion in the city of Liverpool, which all fans or non supporters should be rightly concerned about. We really must become involved in understanding the cause and reasons why we find our city at the centre of such behaviour with no civic or political leader being prepared to make a stand. We have to start talking seriously about race, honestly and constructively to seek to resolve what many continue to conveniently deny in the city of Liverpool and beyond.   

Gloria Hyatt MBE

Education Consultant and Executive Coach.

Consortium of Liverpool and National Black and Anti- Racism Organisations

NO to RACISM AT LIVERPOOL FC - Please sign E-petition

Published by Love Football Hate Racism on Mar 01, 2012

Please sign petition at:

 http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/racism-and-liverpool-fc.html

Background:

 

We have grave concerns about the inadequate responses of Liverpool Football Club to the findings by the FA regulatory commission that determined Luis Suarez was guilty of racially insulting the Manchester United player, Patrice Evra.

Football is a unifying sport providing pleasure and entertainment to billions of people across the planet. Young people from every corner of our world passionately support their team. Football players are held in high regard and viewed as positive role models.

Clubs, players and managers have an important and globally recognized responsibility to demonstrate their commitment to the principle of common decency and fair play. Throughout the world, both on and off the football pitch they inspire and socially educate billions of young people who admire and mimic their actions.

The issue of racism in football is one that requires unambiguous anti racist leadership. The actions of LFC in the run up to and following the publication of the FA’s findings fell short of the high standard of leadership expected for a team of their standing in the football community.

LFC actions, in vehemently rejecting the findings of the FA inquiry, their public displays of support for a player found guilty of racist abuse and his subsequent refusal to shake the hand of Evra at a recent game is completely unacceptable. These actions we believe could be considered as inciting racial intolerance.

Whilst the subsequent apologies for the failure to engage with the traditions of a pre game “hand shake” are to be welcomed, there remains deep concern, about LFC’s absolute refusal to accept the findings of the FA’s investigation. As such these apologies fail to meet the test of genuine remorse and understanding. This is further negated by LFC’s failure to apologise for racism either through the club or Suarez.

Neither have LFC recognised or acknowledged the consequent damage to race relations resulting from their actions and recognised by many people of all races across the country. As a result, efforts to combat racism in football and the wider society in general have been critically undermined.

Compounding these serious errors is the failures of Liverpool’s civic leaders, many of whom have remained silent on these critical issues and have failed to publicly condemn LFC’s decision not to robustly and effectively challenge racism.

Such is the overwhelming power of the Premier League and the influence of clubs such as LFC it is imperative that this situation cannot be allowed to stand.

The international reputation of Liverpool as a city committed to race equality is at stake. In addition there is a real and urgent need to restore confidence in the campaign against racism in football, both here, in the UK and across the world.

Petition details:

 

We the undersigned call on Liverpool Football Club to meet four key demands;

(1) Publicly accept the findings of the FA into the Suarez case.

(2) Liverpool FC and Luis Suarez to publicly apologize to Patrice Evra.

(3) In partnership with Liverpool and national black and minority ethnic organisations commit to and sponsor an international conference on the issue of eradicating racism in football.

(4) Together with civic leaders sign up to a public declaration reaffirming commitment to combating racism and promoting race equality through proactive actions.

 

 

Groupama and the poison of racism - Pepe Reina in racially stereotypical advert

For background to this article please read:
http://leejasper.blogspot.com/2012/03/obv-campaigns-successfully-to-ban.html



The international insurance company Groupama and Liverpool and Spain goalkeeper Pepe Reina have both shamed themselves in the making of the racially stereotypical television advert that depicts Reina meeting a Black “tribe” in a jungle scene, which is both racist and homophobic.


Groupama commercial

 For centuries, Black people have been forced to endure and live with a viscerally poisonous caricature. History is replete with examples of crude and negative racist stereotypes depicting Africans as cannibalistic savages. In this imagery, Africans are usually portrayed as subhuman, violent and dangerous simpletons usually wearing grass skirts with the obligatory bone through the nose.

The other powerful image is the persistent White association of Black people with monkeys. The inference being Black people are more closely related to apes than to modern man. The cultural resonance of these types of stereotype are so powerful, I bet even as you read this you can see these mental pictures in your head.

There is a view within the UK’s Black communities that we are increasingly expected to laugh at such examples of racism in the name of tolerance. God forbid that Black people should react or publically complain should they have the temerity to do so, their complaint will be routinely dismissed as “having a chip on your shoulder”.

If they are public figures they will be lambasted by sections of the printed press and will undoubtedly face an avalanche of racism from the UK’s growing online Twitter Tea Party tendency.

As you would expect, Black people are naturally reluctant to collude with our own oppression in a society t
hat arrogantly and falsely assumes that Britain is a “post-racist society”. Such denial is the stock response to any accusation of racism in the UK.

To date, neither Liverpool FC, nor Reina has issued a statement on this issue. No doubt they are in denial, hoping this issue will blow over. The club has made that mistake before. It is bizarre that they seem to be determined to repeat the mistakes of the past in relation to this latest incident.

Their reported stance can be summarised as ‘what the player does off the field is nothing to do with the club’. This, of course, is complete and utter nonsense and reinforces the growing perception of LFC as a club that is failing to take racism seriously.

Here is some free advice for LFC: Ensure Pepe Reina gives an immediate explanation and apology. As a gesture of remorse and by way of repairing the damage done, Reina should donate the fee he received for the advert to an anti-racism charity. End of.

What starts off as Reina’s extra-curricular earner or a ‘bit of fun’, ends up as racial chanting on the terraces.
The persistence of racism in sport and advertising affects us all. In particular, Black footballers, Black fans, Black politicians and activists and communities are all forced to endure the ignominy of such ignorant portrayals and the on-going right-wing backlash that follows any attempt to raise the issue of racism. And yet what children see players doing today, they do on the streets tomorrow.

The fact that these cruel and archetypal racist stereotypes persist to this day is significant. Such is the all-pervading power of racism and the prevalence of graphic, racist propaganda dressed up as advertising. These derogatory images of Africans are globally recognised and instantly understood by millions across the world.

In both Europe and the UK, Black people have faced serious abuse and at times, deadly violence when faced with groups of White youth infected by such imagery. Such stereotypes are grossly offensive and extremely dangerous.

The last few months has seen the issue of racism in football splashed on the front and back pages of the British press. Liverpool Football Club’s disgraceful handling of the Luis Suarez affair saw a combination of racial abuse and ungentlemanly conduct inflame racial tension on the terraces. Black leaders from Liverpool and across the country wrote in protest at the clubs action, describing Liverpool FC's inept handling of the Suarez matter as “inciting racism”.

Prime Minister David Cameron called a summit of the resurgent phenomena of racism in the national game. As the economy continues to stall and unemployment rise, there is growing anecdotal evidence that the violent racism and bigotry is on the rise across Europe and the UK.

As we approach the European Championships in Eastern Europe, whose record on tackling extreme, violent racism is abysmal, the Football Association, English clubs and FIFA need to send a strong and unambiguous message to players and clubs that racism will not be tolerated in the beautiful game.

My advice is that Black football fans should not attend the EURO 2012 games without absolute assurances from the UK and FIFA that they will not be subject to racial violence and or abuse.
Liverpool Football Club needs to support the efforts of the FA to challenge racism and take real action to provide a national lead in tackling racism.

Lee Jasper

OBV campaigns successfully to ban the racist Pepe Reina Ad

(From OBV 28 Feb 2012 www.obv.org.uk)

Another Liverpool player Pepe Reina in race row

We sometimes forget to our peril the battles we have fought here in the UK against racism and racial stereotyping.

Most of the readers of this article will not remember seeing the type of derogatory stereotyping in cinema and TV advertising, which at the time was not only common place but won awards and acclaimed fame. For example, some 40 years ago the cigarette company Benson and Hedges commissioned the nations number one advertising company Saatchi and Saatchi to make a film for the Silk Cut brand. So prestigious was this account that mini-films with huge budgets would be made. One film in particularly paraded the British Film the Zulu’s.

‘ At the height of the Mbongo uprising a garrison of 80 were surrounded by 30,000 hostile warriors’, Queue a blackened up actor with a plumy English voice dressed as Zulu warrior extolling the virtues of the cigarette brand before threatening to put the English warriors in the ‘pot’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6Kc5QQ6Pv8

Many of us thought these types of videos would be consigned to the museum of very bad taste. Not so. Today in Spain Groupama Seguros –Insurance company- are running a similar distasteful ad in a tribal scenario in which once again a blackened up ‘African king’ speaking in native tongue is presented with the -and you couldn’t make this up-Liverpool and Spanish international goalkeeper Pepe Reina- Reina in Spanish means Queen. So the joke is the African –eye rolling homosexual –King chooses his Queen, Pepe Reina, who looks to the camera for help to check his insurance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmZPeZbI1Y

All very funny if you live in the dark ages and you have no idea or don’t care just how offensive this is. But I’m afraid that’s Spain and much of Latin America too. Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that the former Spanish football manager Louis Aragones  was outraged, and refused to pay a paltry fine for calling Thierry Henry, for no good reason, ‘ Negro de  mierda’. ‘ …Black  shit’. More recently the Uruguay President defended Luis Suarez , for saying, among other comments, ‘No hablo con negros’ . I don’t speak to Black people’.
Despite these shockingly disrespectful ads and comments much of Spain and most of Latin America would argue that there is no racism in their countries. Well I guess on one level if you don’t acknowledge it, you have nothing to confront. But one can only be surprised at Liverpool's  Pepe Reina, who has lived in the UK for a long and is acutely aware of how his  football club has been  embroiled in an unnecessary and protracted  race row.
OBV has contacted the company via their publicist to make an official complaint.
info.wexterbox.escomunicacion@groupama.es
I guess it just goes to show just how far we have come here in the UK.
Simon Woolley

 OBV force Spanish multinational to pull racist ad

(From OBV 29th Feb 2012 www.obv.org.uk)

OBV have learned that Spanish multinational insurance company, Groupama, which has a subsidiary here in the UK, has pulled one of its adverts currently showing in Spain that depicts Black people, in a jungle scenario as stupid, backward, animalistic homosexuals.

Sadly, however, the group go on to say,

“Groupama Seguros does not consider that this advert contains either offensive nor any discriminatory content.”

The advert which stars Liverpool and Spanish international goalkeeper Pepe Reina, plays on his surname Reina-which is translated to Queen in English. In the ad the blackened up chief chooses Reina, the Queen, as his partner in a lustful manner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpmZPeZbI1Y

 OBV’s Director Simon Woolley said,

“I’m shocked on so many levels. Firstly, how would the Spanish feel if the English stereotyped Spanish people as backward, stupid, and animalistic homosexuals? Secondly, what does this say about Pepe Reina? The Liverpool goalkeeper has lived and worked in the UK for nearly a decade, does he think it’s ok characterise Black people this way? Does he think his Black team mates will laugh at his joke?”

Given that Liverpool football club is trying to move forward from the Suarez affair, it is a shame that another one of their players has caused offence, by appearing in an advert that seems to come from a bygone era. Those who are old enough might remember those despicable Benson and Hedges Silk Cut Zulu ads of the 1970’s."

(Update from OBV www.obv.org.uk March 1 2012)

There has been a lot of heat generated from OBV complaining about a Spanish TV ad starring Pepe Reina. Many bloggers on national websites have been outraged that our organisation should say, ‘this demeaning portrayal of Black people in Africa is not acceptable’. Many comments have been very abusive. But few writers have taken a step back and tried to objectively unpick and understand what is being played out in regards to this ad and what it means in Spain and here in the UK

Pete Jenson writing for the Independent has had a go. Whilst you might not agree with everything he says he has nonetheless written a very thoughtful piece.
Simon Woolley


'It is Alf Garnett humour, and Spanish still think it's funny
In 2004, when Spanish club Getafe's supporters were accused of racist abuse, their president, Angel Torres, offered to make his players black up for a game to prove the club was not racist. He was being serious.
It should be pointed out that Torres also proposed that any supporter found making racially abusive comments be banned for life. His intentions were good but, seen through the eyes of people with a different cultural and socio-political history, his idea was hideous.
Pepe Reina's advert for insurance is the kind of thing that would have been screened on British television about 20 years ago, probably while the Alf Garnett series In Sickness and In Health was airing on the other channel. Today anyone coming up with the idea at a brainstorming session would have been getting their coat before you could say "crude racial stereotype".
The question is: should the Spanish be allowed to define and redefine their own perimeters of what is and is not acceptable, taking on board the opinions and complaints of their own ethnic minorities, or do groups from outside the country's borders have a duty to tell them what is and is not acceptable?
In the advert the Liverpool goalkeeper Reina is introduced to the king of an African tribe. The person presenting him to the king says: "Great white man – Pepe Reina." Then the king says something which is translated to Reina as: "The boss says 'you Reina [meaning queen in Spanish], he Rey'" (king in Spanish). The king then says something else and when Reina asks: "And what does that mean?" the interpreter shakes his head worryingly and a spearholding tribesman puts a crown on to Reina's head and shuffles him forward towards the king – the inference being that he will have to marry the king. Reina utters the advert's catchphrase: "Me siento seguro", which translates as: "I feel secure".' The word seguro also means insurance.
Whether the ad for the multi-national insurance firm Groupama really depicts black people as "animalistic homosexuals", as Operation Black Vote suggests, is highly debatable. It's Benny Hill humour with a silly play on the fact that Reina's name means queen in Spanish. The tribal king is the fool in the story – in another of the adverts from the same series the joke is on the Spanish, with Reina sat on a coach being asked for his autograph by a fan, who turns out to be the coach driver who has left his mother at the wheel – Reina utters his "I feel secure" catchphrase as the coach veers across the road. Women drivers could take offence at that one.
Of course, women drivers have never been enslaved and persecuted, and that maybe is the part that Spanish culture still does not get. Should Reina have got it, with his years of playing in England? The behind-the-scenes shots of him filming the advert have him joking with the black actors as he struggles to say his lines without laughing. He will be as surprised as the Spanish TV audience that the commercial has caused so much outrage beyond the country's borders.'

Pete Jenson writing for the Independent



LINKS:

Reina leaps to defence of Suarez - December 22, 2011 - Liverpool goalkeeper Jose Reina believes striker Luis Suarez has been "crucified'' over his racism charge.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/1000197/liverpoo%27s-pepe-reina-leaps-to-defence-of-luis-suarez?cc=5739

Anti-racism campaigners attack Pepe Reina over 'stereotyped' African tribe advert

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Anti-racism-campaigners-attack-Pepe-Reina-over-stereotyped-African-tribe-advert-article872450.html

Pepe Reina in racism storm: A Spanish TV Commercial featuring Liverpool keeper Pepe Reina has been banned following complaints of racism and homophobia. http://www.insidespanishfootball.com/pepe-reina-in-racism-storm/

To see the extent of the internet coverage of this issue worldwide, please check out: http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_sports/view/1186384/1/.html&hl=en&geo=us