[Football] Football commentators must address racial “bias” article taken from the BBC Sport site

[Paulie Gualtieri]

Heard some of this on talk sport this morning.

Can’t say I’ve ever noticed players being described other than by their physical and mental attributes, the only exception being Ron Atkinson, whom I expect will be wheeled out later today confirming it was a different era and he’s educated himself


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[Bakero]

These days if you say Adama Traore is pacy and powerful you get thrown in jail.

 

[father_and_son]

This thread is probably Bear Pit bound but what is your take on this article?

It covers England, Spain, France and Italy so I can only comment on England as I seldom watch foreign games with English commentary.

I get the comments about BAME players being picked out as being faster and maybe more physical than your average white player in general by commentators, but I can’t say I’ve noticed white players being singled out as being more intelligent or articulate. In fact I am often struck by the fact that foreign, rather than BAME, players seem to be just as articulate as British players, speaking in their second (or even third or fourth!) language

Anyway, interesting article and food for thought as I had never even considered this kind of prejudice before, other than the cringeworthy comments made by Ron Atkinson years ago, when he thought he was off mike.

Thoughts? I am thinking maybe overkill brought on by the current climate?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53226508

Not disputing the analysis but the BBC commentary seems to have an unnecessary positive discrimination element. First few paragraphs of the article refers to white players described as intelligent and BAME players as physical (essentially) and then goes on to say that white players are complimented and black players criticised.

Whilst there may be a racial bias as described in the first 3/4 paragraphs it does NOT lead to the conclusion they state.

This kind of sloppy argument undermines an important issue and just weakens the position of those calling for change. Shame on the BBC for not providing an objective review of the analysis and it's important conclusions and instead 'jumping on the bandwagon' with some sensationalism more typical of the tabloids.

 

[Bakero]

So long as commentators call the game as it happens there really shouldn't be an issue. No doubt one or two of the old school ones who were pally with the likes of Big Ron may well display unconcious bias but, by and large, football commentary would be one of the last things I'd be looking to tackle while there are still far bigger issues in race relations in this country.

Trouble is we all have unconscious biases but we're just not conscious of them

 

[Guinness Boy]

Toure. Pogba. plenty of players get comments for intelligent passes, plays, reading the game. can you say you've never heard any such comments for black players? do you even pay attention to this either way?

While I don't record and play back I can remember, just in the last week or so of lockdown games, the skill and intelligence of Ighalo's finish against Norwich and Ferandinho's passing and reading of the game being picked out by commentators.

Trouble is we all have unconscious biases but we're just not conscious of them

True dat.

However, once they are pointed out it is sometimes difficult not to overcompensate. As you say with your Stewart Lee reference you surely have to be able to point out the power and pace of a player like Traore because his physicality and speed are breathtaking and make him a wonderful footballer (and a one man team on FIFA 20).

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

I've not noticed ANY groundstaff of colour, anywhere. There really should be.

White Lines Matter.

 

[father_and_son]

Isn't it? There is some stat that the fastest 100(ish), 100m times have been run by black people. I do sort of think that people who's ancestry originated from different parts of the world tend to be good at different physical things, for example, east African distance runners. Clearly it's very difficult to unpick the physical differences from the cultural preferences of the area. Anyway, the way I see it, people with different ancestry have different physical make ups. Difficult to determine in every day life, but noticeable at the top level of sport. It doesn't mean that people from any given region are better or worse, just different.

I saw an interesting article back around the last Olympics about why Usain is so fast and they never mentioned skin colour once. They did point out that he is (physically) a freak. His body is unusually short and his legs are unusually long (typically, one being long normally means the other is, so to have opposing extremes is doubly rare). Statistically speaking we are unlikely to see anyone so far off the end of both of these curves that they will be able to match his skill for a long time (or that was the gist of the article at least).

Some may be genetic and some may be cultural... But other things are simply random.

I guess the issue is, if Usain had a different heritage, would he have still been a sprinter or would he have been able to do something else?

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

Good article and it is something that needs to be addressed.

See the dispute a few years ago between the excellent journalist Jonathan Lieu and La Liga commentator Rob Palmer as an example of this. Lieu called him out for labelling William Carvalho a monster in commentary, Palmer just didn’t get it at all and make himself look a bit stupid in the end.

 

[Bakero]

Good article and it is something that needs to be addressed.

See the dispute a few years ago between the excellent journalist Jonathan Lieu and La Liga commentator Rob Palmer as an example of this. Lieu called him out for labelling William Carvalho a monster in commentary, Palmer just didn’t get it at all and make himself look a bit stupid in the end.

Here's the thread for anyone interested in the aformentioned spat:

[tweet]917843322437292033[/tweet]


Part of me agrees with one of the replies saying a private message to Palmer might have been better rather than public shaming him in search of retweets. But then again, I guess there's value in making it a public debate.

 

[The Wizard]

Having done sports science, I’m sure I remember that black people have a much higher fast twitch muscle proportion than any other race and so are generally faster and stronger? We did a study on the way that athetics events tend to be dominated by certain races and why this was. Surely it’s just genetic facts that generally there’s a lot more fast, muscular black players than there is white players?

Let’s try and keep this out the bear pit.

 

[Silverhatch]

Having done sports science, I’m sure I remember that black people have a much higher fast twitch muscle proportion than any other race and so are generally faster and stronger? We did a study on the way that athetics events tend to be dominated by certain races and why this was. Surely it’s just genetic facts that generally there’s a lot more fast, muscular black players than there is white players?

Let’s try and keep this out the bear pit.

You do get a fast twitch when a bloke’s pointing a flintlock at you and rattling some leg irons. (Sorry, not conducive to anti bear pit status)

 

[Tokyohands]

Out of interest, can you name some black players who are famously lauded for their football intelligence by commentators?

Henry I think was quite a lot?

 

[Bakero]

Having done sports science, I’m sure I remember that black people have a much higher fast twitch muscle proportion than any other race and so are generally faster and stronger? We did a study on the way that athetics events tend to be dominated by certain races and why this was. Surely it’s just genetic facts that generally there’s a lot more fast, muscular black players than there is white players?

Let’s try and keep this out the bear pit.

The question isn't whether or not black players are genrally stronger or faster. It's the fact that commentators often choose to focus simply on these physical attributes rather than skill, nous and leadership for example. As I alluded to above, of course you can comment on a player such as Traore's strength and speed; in fact it would be ridiculous not to. But the issue isn't about isolated comments but the general pattern of language used by commentators.

 

[Napper]

More rubbish that just causes more divides

Maybe thats the agenda below the agenda

 

[dsr-burnley]

To really see an example of bias as to skin colour, just look at the Olympic Games 100m finals over the years. How often do they praise a man with light coloured skin in that?

One thing they need to do is get away from all this emphasis into splitting us into two camps, "BAME" and "White British". What's "BAME" supposed to mean? Are we telling people that if they come from India, Jamaica, Israel, South Korea, Egypt, Brazil, anywhere else in the world that isn't Aryan, they are just one lump of people in the "not one of us" category? It's an awful, divisive, way to split the residents and citizens of this country and shouldn't be encouraged IMO.

 

[mikeyjh]

Having done sports science, I’m sure I remember that black people have a much higher fast twitch muscle proportion than any other race and so are generally faster and stronger? We did a study on the way that athetics events tend to be dominated by certain races and why this was. Surely it’s just genetic facts that generally there’s a lot more fast, muscular black players than there is white players?

Let’s try and keep this out the bear pit.

People of West African descent, not 'black people'.

 

[GT49er]

its one thing to assume a black player is fast. another to recognise an ability seen. are we saying we shouldnt comment when black players are fast, example Sterling steams past defenders (of unspecified race) for fear of racial bias?

I hope the thread on which the good folk of NSC unanimously rejoiced that Vardy was beaten for speed by our little Lamptey has been quickly removed to the bear pit - racist filth!

 

[Sarisbury Seagull]

Here's the thread for anyone interested in the aformentioned spat:

[tweet]917843322437292033[/tweet]


Part of me agrees with one of the replies saying a private message to Palmer might have been better rather than public shaming him in search of retweets. But then again, I guess there's value in making it a public debate.

I must admit, at the time of that argument I didn’t fully understand the issue and had a lot of sympathy for Palmer and thought Lieu was being a bit out or order.

In response to that argument though and in the subsequent years I have learnt a lot more and noticed it quite often, there clearly is an unconscious issue for a lot of commentators and people generally.

 

[neilbard]

Out of interest, can you name some black players who are famously lauded for their football intelligence by commentators?

You've kind of said it yourself - Being black <> to being of west african or east african descent.

Being black <> to being fast or strong or a good long distance runner. These are just good old fashioned stereotypes. We may as well come out and say all black blokes have big knobs.

This lot had no football intelligence, but I'm sure they all had big knobs!

Kolo Toure
Segun Odegbami
Yaya Toure
Jay-Jay Okocha
Michael Essien
Didier Drogba
George Weah
Samuel Eto'o

This whole thing is getting out of hand, FFS I'm off to take a knee.

 

[Fred Oliver - Legend]

do we pronounce BAME like 'bam' or like 'same'?