ERMeCC and EGSH are happy to invite you to a joint seminar on Friday 15 November 2019, 15:00 – 16:00 in the Mandeville Building, room T3-03.
This joint session will be a lecture by dr. Daniel Kilvington, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University, moderated by dr. Jacco van Sterkenburg.
Although English football believed to have managed the problem of overt racism in and around live football matches, recent years have seen an increase of football related racist content published on social media.
Kick It Out, English football’s main antiracism and discrimination organisation, identified over 134,000 discriminatory posts directed at English Premier League (EPL) teams and players during the 2014-15 season. In addition, within the first month of the 2019-20 season, various players faced online racist abuse simply for missing penalty kicks. This paper therefore attempts to understand what factors (the triggers) have caused and encouraged the growth of racism online before positioning within a football context. With the aid of empirical work, I will explore and critically assesses the response of English football’s institutions, organisations and clubs to the problem of racism on social media. The findings are based on interviews with key officials from the Professional Footballers Association (PFA) and Kick It Out, and with safeguarding and media officers from football clubs across the EPL and English Football League (EFL).
The paper will highlight key research findings: there are a number of systematic failings undermining or hindering football’s attempts to address this issue including poor co-ordination, a lack of clear guidelines, ad hoc educational provision, a shortage of resources, and a culture of secrecy at many clubs. The paper concludes with some recommendations about how these weaknesses may start to be improved.
Moderator: Jacco van Sterkenburg
Title: 'Black Player + Penalty Miss = Cyber-Racism: How English Football is Failing its Players'
Lecturer: Daniel Kilvington
Date: Friday 15 November 2019
Time: 15.00 – 16.00
Location: Mandeville building, T3-03
Note: Seats are limited so register soon!