Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger latest victim of racial abuse
The latest racist incident in the Spurs-Chelsea game is further proof England has a racism problem.
A red card given to Hung Min-Son in the match between Tottenham and Chelsea was the catalyst for yet another racist incident in the Premier League.
Son was sent off after a VAR review showed that while on the ground, he kicked Antonio Rudiger which constituted violent conduct. Moments later, the referee was alerted that Rudiger was being racially abused by certain Tottenham fans.
An announcement was made through the stadium announcer letting the fans know that “racism was interfering with the game” and that they should stop. The announcer made two further announcements warning those responsible.
In a series of tweets, Rudiger said,
"“It is really sad to see racism again at a football match, but I think it’s very important to talk about in public. If not, it will be forgotten again in a couple of days (as always).I don’t want to involve Tottenham as an entire club into this situation as I know that just a couple of idiots were the offenders. I got a lot of supportive messages on social media from Spurs fans as well in the last hours – thank you a lot for this.”"
He went on to tweet that he hopes Spurs are able to identify the person, or people, responsible and to lament that this is still happening in 2019.
Unfortunately, this has been happening all too often this season. A significant number involved players in Serie A in Italy. However, it’s starting to become prominent in the Premier League as well.
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People rightly were quick to condemn the racism England players suffered during a Euro qualifier in Bulgaria. But lately these incidents have been happening in England’s own backyard. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, a Manchester City supporter was caught on camera doing monkey noises towards Manchester United’s Fred in the derby.
Rudiger wasn’t the only victim either. The Guardian report that a Chelsea supporter was arrested for racially abusing Son. Fighting racism with even more racism is, rather obviously, not the answer.
But, again, it’s a problem that has been occurring with even more frequency in world football. It’s often been said that football at times can be the reflection of its society and it definitely appears to be the case.
Postgame, Sky Sports’ Gary Neville said,
"“I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we have just had an election in this country where both main parties are accused constantly over the last month of fueling racism and accepting racism within their parties.If it is accepted in the highest office of the country, we are not talking about it at a micro level we are talking about it at an absolutely enormous level, the highest office in the country.”"
The fact of the matter is that a better job needs to be done and if it means the match has to be abandoned then so be it. If the PA announcer had to make three announcements because it was still going on, then under the rules, the match should have been abandoned.
The phrase “small minority” always seems to be brought upon when an incident of racist abuse happens but that “small minority” keeps popping up time after time and the cycle continues. Not enough is being done.
As Antonio Rudiger said in his tweets, it’s important to talk about it because if not, then it’s going to go away like it always done until it happens again.
The consequences need to be more severe. Those involved seemed to not be deterred by the fact that there are cameras inside the stadium and they can be identified.
Next. Manchester United look so much better with Paul Pogba in the side. dark
A month or so ago, we were going through this with Romelu Lukaku. Then it was Lukaku and Chris Smalling. Then Fred. Now with Rudiger and Son. It’s only a matter of time before we’re back talking about this again with a different player lamenting the abuse and wondering what can be done.