It was supposed to be a one-off for London 2012 but the team will be back at Tokyo 2020. Some Scotland players are eager to be involved but only the English are really happyIt was an afterthought as England’s campaign ended at the Women’s World Cup this summer, but reaching the last four opened a door widely assumed to have closed for good seven years ago. England cannot play in the Olympic Games but their success in France means Team GB, coached by Phil Neville, will appear in Tokyo. A concept branded unsatisfactory by three of the four constituent parts will trigger further debate as the Games draw closer.The competitive anomaly is highlighted by the fact Scotland were one of...
Action has to be taken over Silva’s tweet but the FA response to racism by fans suggests it has not grasped the big pictureLast Saturday, as the players came out before the home game against Manchester City, Everton’s fans unveiled an enormous flag bearing the face of Moise Kean and the slogan “no al razzismo” – no to racism. On Wednesday the Football Association charged the City midfielder Bernardo Silva with misconduct, relating to a tweet he published comparing a childhood picture of his teammate Benjamin Mendy to the cartoon used as a logo by the Spanish chocolate brand Conguitos. Everton’s banner impressed me as an example of purposeful action that might change behaviour and make racism less prevalent in...
If stadiums begin to be closed because of racist chanting then that could bring about the end of abuse for players in grounds at leastAt the end of last week the bookmaker Paddy Power published a tweet which contrasted the £10,000 fine given by the Football Association to Millwall in August for their fans’ racist chanting with the £50,000 fine imposed on Huddersfield Town for wearing an oversized sponsor’s logo on their kit in a pre-season friendly. I retweeted it, suggesting that Millwall’s minuscule fine would make no impact on the behaviour of fans at a club already synonymous with racism.What followed was a barrage of personal abuse from Millwall fans, some insisting I was unfair to suggest they all...
As Herman Ouseley announces his impending retirement from Kick It Out after 25 years, a game that can gift Richard Scudamore £5m can surely fund the campaign properlyIt is probably a measure of the man – and the fact he would never draw attention to this himself – that I must confess that, until the last week, I did not realise Herman Ouseley had never received a penny in wages during all the years he has been at the forefront of football’s anti‑racism campaigning.He announced on Tuesday that he will be retiring from Kick It Out at the end of the season, when he will be 74, and it probably sums up the modern‑day sport that he will be lucky...
FA’s departing chief executive will leave through the revolving door in May but with the ruling body in a stronger positionOn top of the congratulatory statistics with which the Football Association showered Martin Glenn when announcing he will stand down as the chief executive at the end of this season, is another, the most pertinent figure of all. Glenn’s decision, made just before Richard Scudamore takes his leave of the Premier League with his famous £5m thank-you card, means no fewer than six FA chief executives have gone or announced their departures during Scudamore’s single 19-year span.Glenn was 55 in 2015 when offered the dream/nightmare job in Wembley’s corridors, and is said to have told the then FA chairman, Greg...