James McClean’s speech at the PFAI awards last November was one of the more sobering stories from Ireland’s FIFA World Cup play-off exit.
Martin O’Neill’s substitutions were torn to shreds after the Denmark loss, the diamond formation received a forensic analysis from seemingly anyone that had ever laced up a pair of football boots and we questioned ‘do the best fans in the world really leave after 70 minutes?’. Then we heard a story from McClean, a story of an Irish player crying in the dressing room after opening his phone to racist messages and the loss was quickly put into perspective.
“We spoke afterwards and it really got to a few players,” said McClean in an interview at the PFAI awards.
“Everybody watched the game and it was poor, we know that. But some of the comments afterwards, which my Instagram post was about, went beyond football. One player in particular was told to go and play for Jamaica. Make of that what you want.
“It really upset him. My comments weren’t based on football, they were more personal. That’s for a player who has been a good servant to his country and it cut deep. That player was in tears, by the way. You’ve just missed out on the World Cup and then to have that . . . ”
To have that is difficult but certainly not new for Cyrus Christie, who was identified as the player in question.
The Ireland defender grew up in an area of Coventry, England, where he said there were race wars and where people would scale fences wielding knives and machetes. A place where someone once tried to spray detergent in a man’s eye and tried to stab him to blind him.
Given his background, you can see how Christie viewed racist tweets directed at him as ‘water off a duck’s back’ but the disheartening aspect of McClean’s story wasn’t as much the fact that Christie was racially abused – it’s abhorrent but an issue he’s seemingly been subjected to his entire life – the disheartening aspect was that he had held out hope that the relevant authorities could make a dent in a systemic problem.
“I’ve had a lot worse growing up, when I was in school, so for me it was water off a duck’s back,” Christie told the Irish Independent last month in reference to the racist tweets after the Denmark loss.
“I’ve moved on, I was more disappointed with the result than anything. If that’s what they want to resort to, they can, it’s sticks and stones at the end of the day. I’m not going to be too hurt by it.
“I’m not sure how long it will take to be eradicated from the game but a lot more needs to be done. ‘Kick it Out’ and the PFA and FA can do more. Twitter and social media can do more.
“I have experienced it a lot and it is kind of normal for me. You think that it’s going away from that but then it comes back.
“I’m always happy and proud to represent my country and my family is always happy and proud and feel a massive part of it.
“From day one I have felt welcome. I cannot hold the whole country to certain people’s beliefs, you cannot judge everyone by that same cover. I’ll move on from it. It’s gone now, it’s in the past.”
But the abuse persisted. The unattributable Twitter profiles with the unidentifiable faces continued to target him to the point where it was no longer ‘water off a duck’s back’. The abuse reached a point where the duck decided to fight back.
https://twitter.com/cyruschristie/status/988701869945114624
https://twitter.com/cyruschristie/status/988701877981339648
https://twitter.com/cyruschristie/status/988811443570167808
https://twitter.com/cyruschristie/status/988811904389918720
Christie called on social media platforms to do more and now he’s asking Twitter directly to take a greater responsibility in policing racial abuse on their own platform and identifying the abusers.
The social networking service has a policy in place for ‘Hateful Conduct’ and here’s how it reads:
“We will not permit any account to abuse or threaten others through their profile information, including their username, display name, or profile bio.
“If an account’s profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended.”
The Twitter user that abused Christie was suspended by the network, although their identity remains unknown, and their account lies as a small fish in a sea of online hate.
But the Fulham right-back has been the subject of racial abuse from the school yard, and, as long as he’s carrying his phone, he could be subject to it anywhere – even from the confines of an Irish national team dressing room to wherever it is on this earth he may go.
Racial abuse has followed Christie from his childhood to his career as a professional footballer and instead of waiting for the social media network and relevant authorities to take action, he’s taking the fight to them and providing an insight into the type of abuse he receives when we would have otherwise been none the wiser.
We know racism exists in football.
UEFA’s Say No To Racism advert served as a reminder to those in football that some of the most high profile names in the sport were aware of the issue, in case they couldn’t hear it from the stands, and while UEFA have approved stricter sanctions against racist conduct, approved guidelines for match officials to deal with racist incidents in stadiums and proposed 10 match bans for players and officials found guilty of racist behaviour, you then also have FIFA disbanding its anti-racism task force in 2016 and declaring that it has “completely fulfilled its temporary mission” and “is hereby dissolved and no longer in operation.”
Football has made many attempts to tackle racism but you still have players, like former Portsmouth midfielder Sulley Muntari, contesting one match bans for leaving matches in response to racist abuse, you have FIFA – the organisation that disbanded their own anti-racism task force – investigating racist abuse directed at French players by Russian fans during a pre-2018 World Cup friendly between the two countries, and you still have Christie being racially targeted online.
Muntari took his fight to the Italian football authorities but Christie is now taking his fight to the companies that act as vehicles for all types of abuse.
Last month, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey asked for help in tackling the rampant harassment, bots, misinformation and polarisation on their network and invited others to submit proposals for how the company could reduce the toxicity on its own platform.
Christie offered his proposal and Twitter suspended his abuser but will it help stop the flow of racist abuse aimed at a professional footballer that has been targeted from the schoolyards of Coventry right up until today?
Not likely, but racism is no longer considered water off a duck’s back for Christie. It’s a fight that he’s taking to the top. A fight worth fighting and a bout where silence never prevails.
