Searching for ways to wield power when you ultimately have none is hard. The decision of the Lionesses to use their most powerful tool, their collective profile and voice, which is amplified during a major tournament, to support Jess Carter after her decision to speak out about the racist abuse she has received during the Women’s Euro 2025 was a brave one.
They should be applauded because in their statement and collective action there is an attempt to go beyond condemnation of racism to demanding real change and grappling with what that looks like and how you do it – all while trying to win a second major tournament trophy.
The Lionesses’ decision to stop taking a knee in protest at racial injustice will thrust the topic back into the news and, whether it is the right or wrong move, they are attempting to find ways to wake people up to the need for change. “We wonder, as a collective, is the message as strong as it used to be? Is the message really hitting hard?” said Lucy Bronze, in a press conference room that starkly showed the lack of racial diversity in sports journalism. “To us, it feels like it’s not, as these things are still happening to our players in the biggest tournaments of their lives.
“Not taking the knee is about putting another statement out there to say it’s something that is still a problem and still needs to be put right. More needs to be done in football, more needs to be done in society, what that is right now as an individual, I don’t exactly know, but it’s something that we collectively as a team and as a federation want to work towards.”
Taking the knee is a symbolic and powerful gesture that began in 2016 when the then NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem before San Francisco 49ers games as a protest against racial injustice, police brutality and oppression, and in support of Black Lives Matter. His action spiralled into a movement, with athletes wishing to take a stand on those issues joining him. Since then, it has become part of the fabric of football, seen at the start of football matches in England as routine.
To some extent, though, taking a knee has become so the norm it has become somewhat meaningless, something people rarely note or remember why it’s happening. Ultimately, you want people to see standing against racism as the normal and right thing to do, but that’s not what has happened here: the message is being forgotten and the abuse still comes, over and over and over again. However, the Lionesses’ alternative, to stand, which they did in their semi-final defeat of Italy, was also ineffective, if not more so. Bar the small fan-made banner in support of Carter in the crowd and the substitutes standing together arm in arm on by the dugout, that there was a protest taking place was not at all obvious. If the knee goes, a stronger gesture is needed.
As Bronze and players such as Georgia Stanway and Chloe Kelly have said since, more needs to be done. Kelly poignantly said after victory over Italy that the issue can’t be forgotten. “It’s disappointing to see that, sometimes, winning masks racism,” she said. “It has no place in our sport and no place in society, too.”
The problem is they don’t know what the “more” that needs to be done looks like, for them as individuals, a team or more widely. That is a feeling many people share: a sense of helplessness as they see injustice but no way to make a material difference, no way of taking a big step forward instead of lots of small incremental ones that feel like trying to move a haystack one piece of straw at a time.
The messages of support for Carter poured in, from Keir Starmer, Uefa, Fifa, the Football Association and more. Racism has been condemned: it is not welcome, they all say; it is abhorrent, they all say; social media companies need to do more, they all say.
That is all correct, but it is all empty. Yes, social media companies need to have better ways at dealing with incidents of abuse online and there are steps that can be taken, but social media didn’t give birth to racism and it won’t end it. Social media is a conduit for those wanting to spout racist abuse and until the conditions that allow racist views to become prevalent are tackled more generally it won’t go away, online or elsewhere.
How do we stop racism in football? Social media bans, prosecutions and stadium bans can all play a part if implemented effectively, sending a message to fans of what is and isn’t acceptable, but ultimately racism will only truly be gone from football if we eradicate it from society.
The reality is that we tackle racism through education, solidarity and by tackling the issues ordinary people face; by combating homelessness and poverty, by investing in youth clubs and facilities, by building vibrant communities, by properly funding the NHS, through inclusive immigration policies and through reminding people that we have more in common than that which divides us.
This is all much much bigger than football. But that doesn’t give football an excuse for inaction or inadequate action. What football is is a powerful tool, able to influence society, and that is the job it needs to do. Clubs and federations need to actively campaign against racism in society generally. That’s not PR campaigns, branded banners and somewhat empty slogans, it’s being present in local communities, bringing them together through tackling those causes of racism and campaigning for political institutions to do more to stop the divisions that lead to a rise in racism.
This sounds like a lot, intimidating even, a task too big, but football has shown time and time again that people long to be a part of a community and will come together in the most beautiful of ways to support each other; through grief, shared protest, poverty, illness, displacement and more. Football unites fans across all divides – class, race, gender, ability – in an increasingly divided world. On and off the pitch a shared love of football humanises. It brings you closer to your new neighbour, the person that sits next to you in the stands, the person that watches on the same screen in the pub or the person wearing the shirt you feel a deep connection to.
We push for the small steps and incremental changes, for the bans and billboards, but we also discuss and explore the history of racial prejudice, why it still exists and figure out how the roots can be dug out for good. Ultimately, to take that bigger step, we need to change the social conditions that allow racism to permeate and grow.
