Kicking it out
Published 6 November 2012
by Sean Gallagher, current Sport Journalism BA(Hons) student
The Sport Journalism course was in the thick of it as Kick It Out, the under-fire anti-discriminatory and charitable body, staged a fans forum debate over the ongoing furore surrounding racism in football.
LondonEnglandFans, whose convenor, Mark Perryman, lectures on the Sport Journalism course as well as others at the University of Brighton, hosted the event in support of Kick It Out, discussing in depth the topics which have dominated the press over the past year.
Also in attendance were sport journalism graduates Richard Bates and Giuseppe Muro, with the former there due to his continued involvement working for Kick it Out, and the latter representing his new employers, the London Evening Standard.
Former Chelsea football club captain and Kick It Out trustee Paul Elliott was joined alongside Kick It Out’s media and communications officer Danny Lynch. Perryman chaired the debate.
Paul Elliott (far right) and Mark Perryman (second from right) lead the debate
The main topic was the recent boycott by several high-profile black players of Kick It Out’s ‘One Game One community’ initiative, along with issues such as the recent racist abuse of England Under-21 players in Serbia and the use of Twitter by England internationals.
Elliott, a passionate supporter of Kick It Out for nearly 20 years, admitted that the recent boycott by a number of black players, who refused to wear the Kick It Out t-shirt, had initially left him feeling let down and wondering why these players had picked on Kick It Out, but after deliberation he thought differently about the issue.
He said: “Kick It Out has had a magnificent, intangible influence on creating an environment for these current players to play in an environment free from discrimination and prejudice. It has been a tool of education that has mobilised and strengthened and engaged people using the power of football like no other sport has done.
“So my initial thoughts were, ‘why are you picking on Kick It Out?’, but having sat back, been objective, absorbed the facts, I realised that this was just like the first phase where they wanted to use that to vent their frustration, their anger, their disappointment, as those players feel.”
Elliott was heartened last week after reading the Ferdinand brothers’ joint statement showing their admiration for the work Kick It Out had done in the past, and vowed to put the past behind and work with the governing bodies in football for a solution everyone can agree on.
He said: “I was with some colleagues of mine and saw a statement that came out publicly from the Ferdinand boys. I felt this was a very important symbolic statement because I thought and I felt that Kick It Out had been disrespected - that created my own frustrations.”