Boris Johnson’s condemnation of racism in football is hypocrisy

The UK government’s refusal to condemn the booing of players who took the knee contributed to this toxic atmosphere. What did they expect?

Just seconds after footballer Bukayo Saka missed his penalty shot at the Euros final on Sunday, resulting in Italy’s victory, an atmospheric change swept across England. The weeks of celebration and national spirit that had seemingly brought the country together as the tournament progressed were washed away by floods of racist comments towards the three Black penalty takers: Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho. As I scrolled through Saka’s Instagram account after the match, I felt as if I had been transported to an England of 50 years ago. Comments were littered with monkey and banana emojis, he was told to “get out of my country” and was even referred to using the n-word. As appalled as I was, none of this is shocking to me. It is merely a stark reminder of the unaddressed culture of racism prevalent in England. During the match, Black people had joked on social media about the potential for racism should England lose. There were humorous tweets that instructed Black people to evacuate pubs and lock their doors if Italy won. We all made these comments in jest, not expecting that the next morning we would wake up to the racist reality.