And he continues to undermine any credibility anyone might think he has: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20321225 No one wants his "help", clearly. Maybe he should find a new cause to bleat on about without having any understanding of.
I don't think I'll ever get my head round adults grizzling about name-calling, thats all it is at the end of the day, playground rubbish. You can call someone a *****phile, even if they are not!, its not racist, but if a rumour gathered pace as they do, it can ruin their life, and nothing much gets done. Or, you can use a word that relates to skin colour (N word), or religion (Y word) and get absolutely taken to task. The world has gone ****in mad!
This unnecessary sidetrack against Spurs has done a legitimate campaign no favours at all. It will simply alienate many, providing ammunition for those who think that pc correctness has taken over. Could in fact do more harm to a very worthwhile cause. The sooner forgotten the better so that we can get back to the real anti-racism fight. It doesn't help that the unfounded allegations against Clattenburg have also been discussed at the same time. I'd love to know what the motivation was for that one! The anti-racism campaign doesn't need two deservedly lost causes!
Just saw a news story today about the puppeteer of Elmo on Sesame Street who has just been cleared of having under age sex. Basically it is now admitted by the man in question that he wasn't under age. However you can be sure that this tag will follow the puppeteer guy around for the rest of his life, even though he's innocent, but they guy making the accusations will quickly be forgotten.
According to the BBC one of the SBL's plan of action for football is as follows: I'm guessing that means 20% quota of black people at all levels...... I find a quota like this very difficult to fathom. If a team has (for arguments sake) 20 footballers of which 4 are black and they have the funds to buy a player like Messi, Ronaldo, Bale, Iniesta, Higuain or Falcao, this rule would preven them from buying any of these players as that would mean that the they would not meet the quota. The 2009 census (according to Wikipedia) shows that only 3% of the British population is black, yet the SBL wants a quota of 20%? The same census shows that 87.5% of the British population is white, yet they want that capped at 80%? THAT is discrimination and completely unrepresentative. Quotas like this are stupid because its not about finding the right person for the job, its about finding the right ethnicity / race. It is discrimination because if an employer is required to meet a quota, then if they have 100 candidates for 10 jobs, with a quota of 20% black, then if there are 3 black people (as in accordance with the census), they have a 67% chance of being employed and the rest have an 8% chance of being employed. I acknowledge and accept that there may well be some sort of discrimination towards black people in management, executive or refereeing roles, but quotas are not the way around it. The way around it is to stop the people in power from discriminating.
The amount of black coaches and officials at the top level is too low, but this should sort itself out over time. We're seeing a steady increase right now, I think. Hopefully the success of people like our own (on loan to Norwich!) Chris Hughton and Chalrton's Chris Powell will help. There are far more pressing areas of concern even in the English game, in my opinion. Why are there virtually no British Asians in any area of the sport? According to the 2001 census, they account for around 3% of the population (1.8% Indian, 1.3% Pakistani, 0.5% Bangladeshi). That's roughly the same as the proportion of black respondents, if you include the Mixed Race percentage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Census_2001#Ethnicity I've mentioned it before, but I can't help but feel that there must be a serious problem when you can count the number of British Asian players in the football league on one hand.
How many red haired players are there? How many with blue eyes? How many non-Europeans? How many Welsh? How many from The Isle of Mann? How many from the Isle of Wight? How many from the Black Isle? How many Blondes? Not forgetting how many over 40's And so on & on. The sooner we forget all this nonsense and pick people on merit regardless of their colour, creed, or any other 'variation' the sooner we will have a fair society. We won't though will we because humans are humans and they will always find ways around everything if it suits their personal agenda. Lip service to racism won't cut it. Familiarity is the only answer the more mixing that goes on the better. That's already happening and works. That's why there is less racism in Britain now than when I was a boy. What we don't need is separate groups based on visual differences like the Red Haired Association for the Advancement of Hair Dyes or the Society for Black Lawyers.
I'm sure we can expect to see Mr Herbert at the forefront of the next ethnic bandwagon that comes along.
I feel we have gone some way to de-sensitising the Y word with our stance. We've been doing it for a few decades now, to the point its not really an insult thats levelled at us, I've not heard it anyway. It hasn't stopped anti semitism, just changed the nature of insults. Not sure how this can work with black racism, but again its mostly words that cause offence, without wishing to cause controversy, its just a thought that if the words used were dismissed as we have with the Y word, over time they would become less of an insult and fade away. If it wasn't seen as a really terrible insult, it wouldn't be bothered with...or is that too simple?
