Racist Abuse Against Saka Sees Sacking, But Not Accountability

Three U18 Academy players at Portsmouth FC were sacked following an investigation into discriminatory and racist messages sent on a group chat, against Bukayo and his two England teammates after penalties were missed at the finals of the Euro 2020. Portsmouth FC announced that it launched an investigation, and then 2 weeks later announced that the players were sacked. We know what happened to the investigation, but we don’t know what happened at the investigation.

📰 Portsmouth FC can confirm that three players have been released from the academy following the conclusion of a disciplinary process#Pompey

— Portsmouth FC (@Pompey) July 28, 2021

The Euros ended in heartbreak, and much worse

To provide a little context, the English football team reached its first major tournament final in decades at the Euros 2020, but in a script that could well have been written by M. Night Shyamalan, the match headed to penalties – England’s old arch nemesis. 120 minutes were played, huddles were huddled, hand gestures were made, penalty takers were decided and hey presto bob’s your uncle, 19-year old Bukayo Saka was burdened with the fifth and final penalty. Millions of non-Italian speaking hearts were broken as Saka’s penalty was saved by Donnarumma, handing Italy the victory. In that moment, everyone knew what was to follow.  Everyone had been on social media long enough to know exactly what would happen next. 

Of the hundreds and thousands of vitriol-spewing hate-spreading trolls on the internet, three were training in the Portsmouth FC Academy set up. I was able to see a purported screenshot of the alleged snapchat conversation between the boys on Twitter. My first reaction was utter dismay, but it was very quickly replaced with anger. Up until now, I had been seeing them as minors, but I seethed at the venom being displayed here. 

Systemic Issues Need Systemic Solutions

Even then, here’s my concern with the sacking – systemic issues need systemic solutions. Racism is not a series of incidents, it’s a culture, an atmosphere. It cannot be solved by a knee-jerk crime-and-punishment approach. The fact that this happened suggests that Portsmouth has a culture of racism – it can’t not, the entire world does. And Portsmouth FC does not exist outside of the world. A bare statement saying they “are fully committed to the elimination of all forms of discrimination” won’t change that. What will change that is a sustained, long-term approach.

Transparency is an essential component of this approach, and that is what has been missing from this entire episode. The Portsmouth FC website does not make its Code of Conduct for Academy players public, if there even is one. None of the dozens of news reports I read suggested that any of the reporters had accessed such a document either.

The only documents that have been made public in this episode have been four club statements. One announcing the investigation, one announcing that the investigation was continuing, one announcing that the investigation was completed, and a fourth announcing the result of the investigation. The statements do not provide any clues as to what procedures were employed during the “investigation” and during the decision-making process. 

Accountability without transparency is nothing

You may argue that the sacking advances accountability, since it certainly appears that the three boys were held accountable for their actions. But that outcome has nothing to do with accountability. All it does is wash Portsmouth FC’s hands off the whole matter. And we have received no accountability from Portsmouth. 

I’m not suggesting that Portsmouth FC ought to be punished – accountability does not mean punishment. I am suggesting that Portsmouth FC reveal the measures it put into place to ensure this never happens. We need answers on what has been done to counter the culture of racism. Why is a written, reasoned decision not publicly available? 

In the absence of all of this, the objective of the sacking sounds like a face-saving measure for Portsmouth FC rather than a genuine attempt to root out racism. A zero-tolerance approach sounds great to tweet about, but all it guarantees is that racism becomes smarter. Every time there is an attempt to frame systemic discrimination as an isolated issue, the fight against racism becomes harder.