England changes course in the fight against racism

Barcelona"It's clear that both we and football need another way to combat racism." This is the response from the England national team after learning of Jess Carter's complaint about racist comments during the European Championship. Sarina Wiegman's team was the only one, along with Switzerland, to take a knee before the referee's whistle. A gesture that spread across the Premier League following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in the United States.

But in the semi-finals, England refused to continue doing so after seeing that it had not achieved the desired result. In a message shared on social media, Carter, who has already deleted her X account, claims to have suffered "a great deal of racism." The current Gotham player denounces it to prevent other people from having to experience this situation and concludes the statement by saying that she will focus all her energies on helping the team win the Euros. The CEO of the FA (English Football Association), Mark Bullingham, has condemned the acts and has stated that he is in contact with the UK police. A situation that Saka and Rashford, Barça's new signing, already experienced after missing their penalties in the Euro 2021 final.

A gesture that Adama Traoré wanted to instill in Barça

Taking a knee before the start of a game is a gesture used to condemn racism and police brutality toward Black people. It arose from the movement Black Lives Matter after the death of George Floyd. However, the first athlete to do so was Colin Kaepernick. "I will not stand up to show pride in a flag for a continent that oppresses Black people," he said. quarterback and San Francisco 49ers activist, who knelt during the national anthem. Since doing so in 2016, Kaepernick has not played in the NFL again.

With the return of competitions after the COVID-19 break, the Premier League was one of the driving forces behind this gesture in Europe. After a few seasons in which it was done in every match, it finally became a one-off: it's done on the first and last matchdays of the championship and on days dedicated to combating racism. Although Barça women's team did it in some Champions League matches, most recently in this year's tie against Chelsea, it didn't become a common occurrence on Spanish pitches. In fact, the only Spanish men's team to do so was Barça. It happened two years after it became popular, in February 2022, in the Europa League tie against Napoli. The person responsible? A Catalan who came from the Premier League, Adama Traoré.

The winger, who was on loan at the end of the season to Xavi Hernández's team, gave a talk in the locker room before the European match, as he explained to The Guardian"Taking a knee matters, and it was positive that a Spanish team did it. It's a way of explaining that we must fight," recalled the footballer from L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. He reminisced about some of his childhood moments. "You'd go to a nightclub in Barcelona and meet black people who couldn't get in. At school, there were certain people who advocated "No black people." However, his parents always helped him not to give in. It's a trauma, seeing themselves as ugly, rejected, and they might try to change their skin or their features because they don't feel accepted," recounts Adama, who asserts that it's necessary to make people see the consequences and the damage they cause.

The fight against racism against the league

La Liga didn't promote the practice of kneeling before matches, but in recent years it has implemented various initiatives to combat these behaviors (from the banana thrown at Dani Alves at Villarreal to the recent chants against Vinícius at Mestalla). A high-profile case, that of the Real Madrid player, ended up in court and became the first conviction for racist insults in a football stadium in Spain. The three defendants were convicted of a crime against moral integrity and sentenced to eight months in prison and a two-year ban from entering any football stadium.