“A lot is happening in our country with regard to stamping out racism”.

Disgraceful scenes in Serbia, where the U21 game with England ended in chaos following racist abuse of some of the English players. The English manager, Stuart Pearce (quoted in the thread title), the players, and supporters, as well as the media, are rightly outraged. This has come up in comments on another thread a while ago but I don’t know about everybody else, but I’m finding this very hard to take in the aftermath of the whole John Terry thing. Rio Ferdinand dropped because his brother was on the receiving end of racial abuse from the England captain, who was then taken to the European championships by a manager who played in apartheid South Africa. Terry was then given a short and less harsh ban than a foreign player. Ferdinand then finds out he’s definitely not in the next squad because Roy Hodgson told some guy on the tube. England player after England player then comes out to say what a great guy Terry is. Respect indeed.

The idea of the English FA as the champion of anti-racism in football is now blatantly a ridiculous idea but you’d think the whole incident had never happened. Somebody in the English media and the football world needs to stand up and point out the emperor has no clothes.