Monday, July 12, 2021
The scandal after the European Championship defeat
England’s Night of Racial Shame
By Stephan Uersfeld
In the run-up to the European Championship final, fans storm Wembley Stadium. After the missed penalties, racist insults against English players break out. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tries to appease. But the criticism has long been directed against him.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson apologized when the pieces were swept up in front of Wembley Stadium and the initial grief over the defeat by the three penalties awarded by black national players Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka in the European Championship final was overcome. “This England team,” he tweeted, “deserves to be revered as a hero and not to be racially insulted. Those responsible for these appalling insults should be ashamed.” In England, not a few believe that Boris Johnson will not be ashamed. You have identified him as the person in charge.
“It starts at the top,” said an enraged Gary Neville on Sky News. The former England international doesn’t want Johnson to get away with it. “The Prime Minister has said it is okay for the people of the country to boo on players who are trying to promote equality and defend racism.” How did it come about and what happened at Wembley anyway? How could England’s night of shame come about?
The excited mob storms the stadium
Up in the Royal Box at Wembley Stadium, Boris Johnson once again presented himself close to the people. Unlike the emissaries of the royal family, the prime minister wore the jersey of the Three Lions. It was his big moment. First he led England out of the European Union, then defeated the pandemic on his own with his vaccination program, then reopened the sports facilities to spectators and now he would be crowned the actual King of England alongside Prince William, Duchess Kate and their son Prince George. Hosting the final was also England’s letter of application to host the 2030 World Cup. A prestige project for Johnson’s Great Britain.
Shortly beforehand in front of the stadium on Wembley Way, the narrow path between the subway and the entrance, scenes were played by the observer of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” are portrayed with a day’s clearance from security forces overburdened in the face of “a mob stirred up with chauvinistic pathos and all sorts of intoxicants”. The mob broke through the barriers and stormed into the stadium. First disputed by official bodies, then confirmed, according to ntv.de information, it was a four-digit number of fans who reached the Wembley Stadium, which was already filled with almost 70,000 spectators, without a ticket. The fans soon fought each other on the distribution levels of the stadium.
On one side there were those with a ticket and on the other side those without. The security forces seemed overwhelmed. Then Luke Shaw met, then Italy equalized and in the penalty shoot-out, the very players who are a thorn in the side of the English fans because of their skin color were forgiven. The disaster took its course. Everything is related to everything. The lawlessness displayed before the game and the contempt for any rules of decency are carried over to the net. There were racist insults of the worst kind on social media, and outside on the streets of the country it is said to have become sometimes uncomfortably racist and violent. It was foreseeable.
The struggle for a new England
Even before the game, the right wing political actor Nigel Farage had himself photographed in a Union Jack vest in front of the stadium. It was a picture with symbolic power. So the whole of England was behind the Three Lions, not because they loved the team, but because they were swept away by a wave of nationalism. A battle of ideas had developed over the course of the tournament in England. The national team with their coach Gareth Southgate propagated a new, more open-minded patriotism of the left, while the old guard clung to their old values. Similar to Brazil in 2014, the United Kingdom presented itself as an internally torn country that the responsibility for healing the nation was now placed on its young footballers.
“An adult, stable democracy loses a football game, wipes its mouth and goes back to work the next morning. An adult, stable democracy doesn’t behave like England behaved yesterday,” says Berlin-based author Musa Okwonga Conversation with ntv.de. Together with the former musician Ryan Hunn he operates Stadio, one of the best podcasts on football. His book, published this year “One of Them” explores his years at Eton College and English classicism. Looking at the insults on the net, he comments soberly: “People have social media and they have hatred in their hearts. A fatal combination.”
The critics are not buying his regrets from Johnson
The events in London were as predictable as they were unnecessary. During the day, images of the exuberant and sometimes ominous anticipation were repeatedly transported out into the world from the English capital. The images transported around the world from Leicester Square, the subways and the stadium area were compounded by uncertainty about the health implications for the population in the face of the UK-based Delta variant. This makes up 98 percent of all new infections nationwide.
All of this was strange, but also to be expected. All of England is currently a gigantic test laboratory. The football, the dream to end the years of pain, was the right field and England finally made it into the final of the European Championship with quite a sovereign degree. That did something to the country. Even coach Southgate fell into old World War I rhetoric on the eve of the final. The memory of it provided the decisive shot of motivation in the game against Germany, he said.
“In the last few days before the game you could see how the feeling of anticipation turned into the superiority, dominance and humiliation of the opponent,” says Okwonga, who, like Gary Neville, does not buy his regrets from Boris Johnson. Already in the semi-final against Denmark and in the round of 16 against Germany, the anthem of the guests was booed by parts of the England supporters. Nationalism already existed before, after the penalty shoot-out it was also directed as racism against its own players. “Unfortunately it is like this: In England this kind of racism is never far away. What started yesterday was prepared for years by the government but also by parts of the English media,” he says. “The fact that they are all now backtracking only shows how shocked they are by their own campaign. We are talking about a government that just a few months ago presented a study that simply denied the existence of structural racism in the UK. “
Criticism of the media too
Even the sociologist Mark Doidge from Brighton University is not surprised by the behavior of the English fans. “Old England will never disappear,” he says in an interview with ntv.de. “It has a strong voice and it is no surprise that it is the part of the electorate that Johnson and his administration have been actively courting since they came to power to push through an extreme Brexit.” Like so many on the day after the English Day of Shame, he pointed out the lack of leadership in the English government.
Brexit and the current disputes with the EU over the Northern Ireland Agreement, the back and forth in the pandemic with the delayed lockdowns, the kiss in front of UEFA, the handling of the players who had fallen on their knees: Doidge is holding nothing back. The resentment, also about the absence of any opposition, resonates with every word. “And then there’s the failure of the social media companies. They don’t do anything about this abuse. It’s also government inaction. And it’s a media environment that seems to revel in creating dissatisfaction and division while.” it promotes clicks on their websites. ”
The day after the final, after the day of shame, England is more torn than ever. Nothing is left of England’s 2030 World Cup dreams for the time being. The internal processing of the events has only just begun. “If England face Italy today, Mr. Rashford’s England and Mr. Johnson’s England will be united under the same flag; if my country wins, they will be indistinguishable in their cheers,” Okwonga wrote on the day of the final in a post for the “New York Times”. His subsequent words could not have been more prophetic. “But on the morning after the game and in the years to come, I know what vision of England I will keep my fingers crossed for.”
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