Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville says football must take a “giant leap” to address inequality and discrimination within the game, insisting words and campaigns are no longer enough.
Neville said the time had come for ‘real’ and ‘demonstrative’ measures to be put in place to tackle the issue beyond ‘obvious abuse’ and also admitted he was ‘ashamed’ at not doing more to fight racism during his playing days.
The Premier League is set to restart next week, as protests against racial injustice continue around the world in the wake of the death of George Floyd.
“The idea of having a Kick It Out T-shirt on once a season as a football player doing a picture in front of a flag and then going training and basically not seeing it again for another 12 months is not enough,” the Sky Sports pundit said.
“Forget campaigns. Forget words. It has to be actions. It has to be demonstrative, it has to be real and happen. We need to take a giant leap rather than minute steps each year. We know the obvious discrimination, the obvious abuse – it’s easy for us to see that – but we need to talk about equal representation in boardrooms, on the coaching side up and down this country.
“I’m not going to hide away from it. We need education, we need protocols and processes in place which basically reverse what’s been happening in our country.”
Racist chants were directed towards England players during last year’s Euro 2020 qualifiers in Montenegro and Bulgaria, the latter game coming close to being abandoned after it was twice halted because of the abuse.
Fifteen years earlier, Neville was in the England side that played Spain in the Bernabeu, where some home fans aimed monkey chants at fellow defender Ashley Cole.
“The reality is we put racial abuse in the same category as the abuse we would receive for playing for Manchester United or England,” he added. “We didn’t think. We just got on with it. It’s appalling and I’m ashamed of the fact for someone who was on the PFA management committee and fought for players’ rights at nearly every level, I didn’t fight hard enough on this.
“I didn’t demonstrate anything and it’s not good enough. It’s not me. But what we’ve seen in the last few weeks has been enlightening. I felt warm and tingly watching the protests. The passion, the feeling, the intensity of it.”
