Opinion

PFA study finds racial bias in football commentary – time to kick it out

RunRepeat and PFA study proves players with darker skin tones more likely to be criticised for intelligence and versatility

Only 5 per cent of in-game commentary teams they studied were non-white – and that should change

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Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold with the words “Black Lives Matter” on the back of his shirt during the English Premier League Merseyside Derby against Everton. Photo: Xinhua

Formerly of the South China Morning Post, Jonathan White has written about sport from China for nearly 15 years, and covered the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the Fifa World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Published: 5:00pm, 3 Jul 2020Updated: 9:56pm, 4 Jul 2020

“I ask you, can you get any more Belizean than that?”

That’s the punchline to a sketch on BBC Radio 4 comedy John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme, where two football commentators describe the action from a penalty shoot-out defining each participant by their nationalities.

Northern Europeans are all clinical efficiency – “standing still now with all the clinical efficiency of a particularly efficient clinic” – while Italians and South Americans are flamboyant and passionate – “not quite as efficient as Romera’s passionate save was passionate”.

They are then stumped by Belize, with confusion as to whether it is in South America or one of “the little ones in Europe”. Ergo, hedged bets in the commentary box.

“With clinical flamboyance, he takes the shot … And he scores … What a penalty. Passionate in that he kicked it hard and efficient that it went in the goal.”