Football has a terrible reputation when it comes to
bigotry – all stripes of bigotry, really. Much the same as rather a lot of
professional sport does. It generally happens unchecked, either being ignored
by the governing bodies and big names or being tacitly approved of and
encouraged.
This certainly applies to homophobia – there is a reason
why out footballers are not common
In an attempt to supposedly combat this, the Football
Association created the Inclusion Advisory Board, chaired by Heather Rabbatts
who has a long history of challenging racism and sexism in football. The 10
member board was filled and due to start.
Except one of the members, Michael Johnson, actually did
a television appearance in 2012 in which he described being gay as “detestable”
and was very not supportive of trying to combat homophobia in football.
This man was appointed to an Inclusion Advisory Board
intended to fight bigotry – including homophobia. You would think this wouldn’t
make him the best choice.
After a week of bad publicity he resigned from the post
he was so woefully unsuitable for – but problems remain.
Firstly, how are GBLT people – and minorities in general –
supposed to take this body seriously? It’s clear the selection process has been
at very least amateurish – either it has been handled in a singularly
incompetent fashion or the FA simply didn’t care enough to actually put even a
half-assed effort in (it wasn’t like his homophobia was obscure – this was a
televised incident on the BBC) or they did do decent background checks and just
decided homophobia wasn’t a problem.
None of these are good options. None of these suggests that the Inclusion Advisory Board is capable – or willing – to do what it was created for
Secondly, when Michael Johnson’s homophobia was revealed,
the FA didn’t instantly declare “oh shit, our bad” and remove him from the
board. They defended him. Heather Rabbats personally went to bat for him
(homophobia apparently not being something that concerns him) and is still
doing so today – even talking about continuing to have the IAB consult him.
Again, this shows that the FA, the Inclusion Advisory Board and Heather
Rabbatts aren’t all that concerned about homophobia. There has been an echoing
silence from the other board members.
Thirdly, the charities that the FA refers to on its site
as helping combat homophobia (kick it out, pridesports, stonewall) were silent
on this matter. Kick it out the only one who mentioned it at all, and they only
providing the FA’s press release after Michael Johnson stepped down – and that’s
all they provided, a copy and paste. This looks a lot like charities supposed
to be acting for equality stepping back if it may actually put them in combat
with the FA – again, I question their purpose. If a bigot on the Inclusion
Advisory Board of the FA isn’t worth speaking about then why pretend you are
fighting homophobia in professional sports at all?
Fourthly, Michael Johnson quit, he wasn’t pushed. His
twitter feed suggests that he’s resigned because of “tabloid journalism”
reporting the story – which really shows how inappropriate he was for the role.
There’s no indication that the FA or the Inclusion Advisory Board has learned
anything from this or that they, in any way, think that such homophobia is
unacceptable. They were willing to keep a homophobe on their special new
equalities board and saw no problem there.
In the aftermath, we’re left with no reason to believe
the Inclusion Advisory Board will make any appreciable effort to battle
homophobia in sport – or that it (or its members) is even capable of
recognising homophobia. It doesn’t look like the FA is overly concerned and
they are more interested in a token fig-leaf than actual change. In the end, if
homophobia in football is reduced, it seems it will be despite the FA and their
inclusion board, not because of them.
