New head of UK soccer anti-racism body expects tough challenges ahead

SHOWS:

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (NOVEMBER 12, 2019) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL)

1. (SOUNDBITE) (English) KICK IT OUT CHAIRMAN, SANJAY BHANDARI, SAYING:

"I think you can't divorce football from the rest of society and actually what we're seeing is a rise in discriminatory incidents in the rest of society in England and I think that's a much more complex question, and there are deeper economic, social, political reasons. So, if you ask me why I think that's happening, I think the causes are things like breakdown in trust in our public leaders, you know you can trace that back to MPs expenses scandal, the Iraq war, the financial crisis 10 years ago, that means there's this collapse in public trust, that's one factor. The rise in identity politics (is another factor). Automation causing income inequality, the proportion of GDP that now goes to the owners of capital rather than the owners of labour, that has become much more distant. The distance between the average CEO salary and the least well remunerated person in an organisation is higher than it's ever been. That creates social and economic polarisation, and you combine that with developments like social media which kind of encourages us down these bubbles where it's quite possible to never speak to anyone who has a different opinion to us. We're in our own echo chambers. I think it's all of those things that create the environment that means that discrimination is on the rise. People can now feel more confident to express views that maybe were bubbling beneath the surface than they were three or four years ago. And you combine that with politicians wanting to not just win office from the extremes, but govern from the extremes, that's really a phenomenon around the world that we've not seen for a long time. I'm not saying we've never seen it before, but we've not seen it for a long time. So, I think it's all of those factors and if you just focus on football and if you think of it as just being a football issue, you're probably not going to resolve it."

3. NEWS CONFERENCE IN PROGRESS

STORY: The new chairman of British soccer's anti-racism 'Kick It Out' campaign has warned that rising levels of discrimination and racism in the sport are a result of wider problems in society, and that tackling the core issues that lead to such behaviours will be a long process.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday (November 12), Sanjay Bhandari spoke of his own experiences with racism in the past decades as a football fan, but said there had been huge improvements in fan behaviour and tolerance of minorities since the 80s and 90s.

Bhandari said a recent combination of social, political and economic changes, as well as the advent of social media, has created a perfect storm for a resurgence of more visible abuse.

Bhandari said 'Kick It Out' will support any soccer player who decides to walk off a pitch due to fan abuse, but that their preference was for players to allow match officials to carry out a protocol that sees the game stop and the crowd warned to stop as a first measure.