In the case of soccer, it is not that the sport itself is a magnet for racists. It is that it provides rich soil in which all sorts of weeds can grow.
Its inherent tribalism can generate passion, loyalty and love, but it also gives root to hatred, anger and despair. At a time when Britain has a prime minister whose past use of racist language did not prevent his rise to the nation’s highest office, when the country has spent five long years in a culture war stoked by anti-immigrant sentiment, and when the population has spent months locked indoors, growing frustrated and afraid, it is perhaps a sad inevitability that soccer should be the vent for people’s darkest, angriest thoughts.
But if that sounds as if it is absolving soccer of blame — a reiteration of the idea that racism is a societal problem, not a sporting one — it is not. Soccer might not be able to solve racism, but it can certainly address the more general culture of abuse it has not just allowed to fester, but also been actively complicit in cultivating, for decades.
Mike Dean, one of England’s most experienced — and therefore least popular — referees, will not take charge of a game this weekend. He has asked to be excused from Premier League duty after his family received death threats on their private social media accounts after his decision to send off West Ham’s Tomas Soucek in the dying minutes of a draw with Fulham last week. (Those threats, too, have been reported to the police.)
There is a connection here to the racism experienced by Dhanda, Sawyers, James and the countless others, just as there is to the sexist abuse directed at the former England international Karen Carney by Leeds United fans for daring to venture an opinion with which they happened to disagree.
The link is that soccer indulges and, at times, even directs abuse. It can be obvious — the official Leeds Twitter account, and then the club’s owner, drew its fans’ attention to Carney’s comments in what was a fairly brazen attempt to gather the pitchforks — or it can be more subtle.

Source: New York Times

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