Racism in football has never, and will never, be eradicated.
As social culture has changed, racism in society has become so much rarer, and where it does exist the views are expressed much more privately meaning the rest of society can get on with their lives without having to listen to such pig-ignorant and historic views.
Britain is one of the world leaders when it comes to equality and multiculturalism – the Premier League is a glowing example of this – however, much like the issues of homophobia deep in football, racism has been there the entire time and has never, ever gone away. It never will. However, with men like Sepp Blatter in charge of football’s biggest and most powerful organisation nothing will improve.
When racist slurs are chanted from the stands the world can hear what is being said. When bananas are thrown onto the pitch the world can see the who some of the culprits are. When players are having racist insults shouted at them on the football pitch by fellow players the world can’t see or hear what is being said. In situations like this there is little proof, and without proof, no punishment can be handed out.
The comments by Sepp Blatter are laughable but the outcry will not remove this pest from his highly influential position in the game, taking a brief look around the sporting press in other countries you would be forgiven for having thought his comments never took place – it will be painted as an England vs FIFA slanging match – sour grapes from a failed World Cup bid. Nothing will change yet again.
The events of the past 24-48 hours show that the core of football is still rotten. SKY can present this pristine and clean image of the game, played on beautiful green pitches in packed stadiums – I guess the perfect metaphor of this could be the fact that the average viewer will be blissfully unaware of the quagmire that is the average League Two pitch in the middle of winter; what I mean by this is that it is presented as perfect on the surface, it hides the fact that there is plenty of dirt, filth and inequality behind the scenes.
Once the outcry has died down nobody will care anymore because the issue is out of sight and mind, give it seven days and it will hardly be mentioned until the John Terry police investigation reaches its conclusion and the FA can then finalise their investigations into that incident.
What is so infuriating is that the attitudes at the very top always sink down to the bottom, attitudes are infectious and you get the sense that if an issue doesn’t involve FIFA’s share of television rights and the money attached to that, then it is just given lip service and brushed under the carpet.
I guess one of the most important things to remember is just how far the game has come in this country and others when it comes to the issue of racism. Let me say this now; racism in any way should not be tolerated and is utterly unacceptable. Progress has been made though, look at the number of black players in this country, it is not yet reciprocated in the number of black managers, however, give it time and there will be greater numbers of black managers. We don’t need any ‘Rooney rule’ – just let society progress as it is doing and it will improve.
Let campaigns like Kick it Out continue to work their magic, let these comments spur the game onto clean up this, and other discriminatory issues up quicker and better.
The events of the past couple of days are inexcusable, however lets use these events to further improve and evolve our game.
The young Arsenal star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain discusses his rapid rise to fame from a very early age, with FATV’s early days. A summer signing, the creative midfielder has impressed in the Carling Cup and will certainly offer a selection headache for Arsenal’s tough upcoming clash against Manchester City – In the Carling Cup semi finals.
Tonight he is likely to star for the U21 Three Lions as they play Iceland.
Will the youngster continue his decent goalscoring form tonight? Check out football betting to find out the odds.
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The past two weeks have been very, very good for us. First of all the brilliant game against Chelsea will live long in the memory, it made people sit up and take notice of us again and most of all take notice of our captain – currently one of the best best players in the world and probably the very best out and out striker. People can chat about Ronaldo and Messi to their hearts content but they aren’t attackers in the mold Robin van Persie is.
Slowly but surely the fluidity has returned to Arsenal’s play, attacking has looked easier and defending a whole lot less shaky than it had been previously. What we are seeing is out big and experienced players standing up and being counted for, Gervinho has stepped it up a notch as he adapts to the English game, Laurent Koscielny is in brilliant form, the return of Thomas Vermaelen has not only given us presence and leadership at the back but he does offer an attacking threat going forward too. It all gives the opposition so much more to talk about.
Mikael Arteta is getting better and better as he clicks with his new team-mates, it has freed up Aaron Ramsey that little bit more and our current first-choice midfield trio just seem to bounce off each other and work very well as a unit. Our unsung hero this season has been Alex Song, not only has his passing drastically improved, so has his work-rate and tackling; he still gives away the odd dopey free-kick but not half as many as he used to.
There is one thing this team seems to have in droves right now, and that is spirit. We saw that directly after the win against Chelsea, the tough end to last season and the horrible start to this season has bonded this team together, teams aren’t created with victories, the relationships are forged through adversity – the true test is always how well you bounce back from disappointment.
Over the past few months you may have noticed me writing less and less, there is one main reason for this and this is the lack of time available to me at the moment. I am working on turning the site into a one every three days type blog, (Monday, Thursday, Friday/Saturday).
I’m going to try and make the odd change to the look of the site if time allows me, and if you loyal readers have anything that you wish to post you can simply send an e-mail to goonblogger@gmail.com and we can discuss having your writing posted on here.
You can also follow me on Twitter @thegoonblog
I’m in an absolutely fantastic mood at the moment, uni work is out the way, I have tickets to two upcoming Arsenal matches, time off work and my 21st birthday this weekend. Oh, and did I mention Arsenal are doing a bit good at the moment too?

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