Brewster's experience of racist abuse represents unacceptable treatment of a young man just trying to do his job. The player has been praised for unequivocally relating his experiences, which have been free from the euphemism so many would have preferred the shadow home secretary Diane Abbott to adopt when she shared that, last year, she had been called a “n----- bitch”.
In an interview with my colleague Daniel Taylor for the Guardian, Brewster frankly outlined the racist abuse he both witnessed and suffered while playing for Liverpool in Uefa Youth League matches and for England. Called the N-word and subjected to monkey chants, the 17-year-old has understandably lost faith in Uefa, whose responses to these incidents have been pitiful or nonexistent.
Uefa says it encourages referees to “stop, suspend or even abandon a game if racist incidents occur”. Players found guilty of racist behaviour can receive a 10-match suspension, and stadiums can face closure if this applies to fans. Uefa recognises the power it has to drastically change the experiences of young black players. However, for now at least, it seems disinclined to use it. It is an obvious dereliction of duty. The hope is that today – the first day its offices have been open since 22 December – the governing body will stir itself into more forceful action.
Slogans, though easy to cobble together and flash at millions of people, are empty. Like a sticking plaster for a virus, their flimsiness is obvious when set against the task of healing. It is a lesson the Italian football league painfully learned last October. The president of Lazio football club, Claudio Lotito, had players wearing T-shirts declaring “no to antisemitism” accompanied by a picture of Anne Frank. An excerpt of her diary was read at every Italian league match during the same week. Yet some Lazio fans sang fascist songs while making salutes during the reading. The horrified prime minister, Paolo Gentiloni, called the scenes unacceptable. Quite. The trouble is in how governing bodies, clubs, fellow players and not least the fans act in solidarity to underscore that such behaviour is intolerable.
One way to do so is by not distancing the English game, run by the FA, from the routine instances of racism experienced by black and minority-ethnic (BAME) players. To focus solely on Uefa's failings is to miss the point of Brewster's interventions entirely. Yes, much progress has been made: in Brewster's interview it is clear he hasn't experienced in England racist abuse of the kind encountered in matches against Russian and Spanish teams. Still, players continue to walk out on English pitches subjected to such abuse. Anecdotally, others refuse to sign to the youth wings of certain clubs because of the rampant racism associated with their fans.
BAME players make up a quarter of players in English football's four divisions yet account for a miserable 4% of senior coaches. It is the same footballing establishment that last October couldn't admit it had failed in its duty of care to the England player Eniola Aluko. And it is the same leadership that couldn't quite bring itself to find anything wrong with racist texts sent “privately” between Iain Moody, now Colchester's head of player resources, and Malky Mackay, currently caretaker manager of Scotland and the performance director of the Scottish Football Association. The controversy eventually blew over, and both white men's careers in football continued, once the word “banter” was used to explain their seemingly indefensible interactions.
