Sports. They bring us together and extract the deepest emotions from the depths of our hearts. Many of the happiest moments of my life were because of soccer, from scoring my first goal to witnessing my idol finally achieve his dream – winning the FIFA World Cup. Soccer is called the Beautiful Game because of the billions of others that form a family around one common love for the game, however, I don’t believe this is entirely true. I have seen cruelty and hate that expand farther than just banter, mostly in the form of racism. From social media posts and direct messages to various objects thrown at a player(s) during games, there is a clear and explicit presence of racist hate that plagues our beautiful game. Having been an avid fan of this sport for over a decade now, I have begun to notice that ‘fans’ have racially abused players who play for their team. This has made me realize that, unlike myself and many others, some people who consider themselves fans only care for players when they do well.
In 2020, Bukayo Saka, a rising star for the English National Football Team and Arsenal F.C., was tasked with taking a decisive penalty for England in the 2020 European Championship Final against Italy which would give England a chance to win their first trophy since 1966. At 19 years of age, Bukayo Saka broadened his shoulders to carry the weight of the country and the pressure of the 30 million viewers. He took the penalty when even the senior players wouldn’t and when he missed that penalty, the world stood still. Despite the constant flow of support and admiration for Bukayo during the tournament, some English fans turned in the blink of an eye which resulted in an excess of racist abuse to the young player. Bukayo Saka, English-born with Nigerian parents, was met with a feeling that should never be burdened upon anyone, especially not a teenager.
Years later, having won Player of the Year awards from the England National Team (2), Arsenal (2), and the Professional Footballers’ Association (1), it seems as though the events after the final of the EURO 2020 faded away from memory. While this is not the only instance in which this has happened, It certainly provides insight that despite who the player is, their performances will always be scrutinized. Thierry Henry, an Arsenal F.C. legend, spoke about Bukayo Saka’s penalty in an Amazon Prime Video docuseries and said that “people do not care about how you feel as a human being”. Henry’s quote provides a powerful message about how not only soccer players but celebrities are perceived to be perfect to a certain degree and that they are immune to negative impacts on mental health.
When Saka broke the silence later that summer, he expressed his disappointment in his miss but also a powerful message to social media platforms which read “I knew instantly the kind of hate that I was about to receive and that is a sad reality that your powerful platforms are not doing enough to stop these messages”. These quotes point out that there aren’t enough initiatives and parameters in place to eradicate racism from social media platforms, especially seeing how accessible they are to all ages. There is so much hateful media that goes around and is never acted on by social media companies that allow this content to gain a continuous presence on social media. So how can social media companies take action to limit or even eliminate racist or hateful actions from being present on these different platforms? The difficulty here is defining where someone has ‘crossed the line’ and keeping companies accountable for maintaining that standard and acting by brandishing bans or even getting law enforcement involved. Regardless of the intent, hate speech is hate speech and there is no room for that when all users are at risk of receiving hate messages. Hate speech not only poses emotional harm to an individual but to entire communities as well, and because of cases like Bukayo Saka’s, fans and players alike may lose love for the sport or even fear being themselves because of the harm they know other members of the soccer community can cause to them. Much like The Beautiful Game, social media should be a place where people can express themselves openly with excitement and without fear of being judged or criticized let alone being the subject of hate.