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Men's Football Uefa's Equal Game conference causes football's bigwigs to reflect on their role in the rise of racism in the sport

With racism in football once more at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts following a spate of recent high-profile incidents, Uefa hosted its first Equal Game conference at Wembley Stadium aimed at tackling discrimination within the sport, part of a week-long celebration of the 20th anniversary of Football against Racism in Europe (Fare).

Uefa President Aleksander Ceferin opened the conference with an admission.

“Today I’m ashamed. I am ashamed that in 2019 we have to organise a conference to promote diversity. I’m ashamed that here in Europe not a weekend goes by without a discriminatory act taking place in our football stadiums, at amateur or professional level. 

“I’m ashamed to see extremist movements use our sport as a vehicle for their messages of hatred and intolerance. A stadium must not and must never be a forum in which people are allowed to express their sickening fascist nostalgia — that is why I am ashamed.”

It was the racist abuse suffered by England footballers in Montenegro last Monday that was uppermost in the mind of FA Chair Greg Clarke. 

“This isn’t us trying to burnish our image of inclusion. This is us trying, wanting, to put English football front and centre of addressing the issues Aleksander has raised. 

“I’m using this match as an example of something that’s happening in all our societies. I’m not pointing the finger at any one country. None of us can be naive enough [to believe] racism doesn’t happen in each of our nations and at everyone’s matches. 

“It’s happened in the UK over the current season. We need to listen to young, diverse players in our game. When Raheem Sterling, Danny Rose or Callum Hudson-Odoi speak with such maturity and confidence, we must listen and we must respond and we must not let them down.”

In the audience, the general secretary of the Montenegrin FA, Momir Djurdjevac, stood up to answer the accusations against his country. “The delegate himself did not hear those inappropriate chants. The referee did not stop the game. I’m not saying that they did not occur, there were a handful of idiots and because of these three or four idiots Montenegro has been pilloried. 

“Please let’s condemn those individuals who did it but let’s not talk badly about the 99.9 per cent of people who were there in the stadium. 

“For the sake of all of us and for the sake of the media, I would like to apologise to all those who have gained a very bad impression of Podgorica and let Uefa’s disciplinary inspectors do their work unfettered.”

Former Nigerian international Peter Odemwingie, who spoke about his own experiences of racism growing up in Russia, implored the English media to take greater responsibility when talking about black footballers. 

“You can read behind some sentences what the journalist is about. You can see the games some of them are playing. In issues like race, discrimination, gender equality they really need to be sensitive. 

“I think in the press, and in England in particular, there are reasons and grounds to complain. I absolutely understand what Raheem Sterling was trying to say. I think you can set the tone before a fan gets out to a stadium of how it will go.”

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