Lord Ouseley - Chairman, Kick It Out HARDtalk

Communist Party. He is one of them. It is now time for HARDtalk. If

football is the beautiful game then it risks being disfigured by an

ugly scar, racism. Players, fans and administrators have all pledged

their determination to kick racism out of the sport, but there's

plenty of evidence to suggest the anti-racist rhetoric isn't working.

Lord Ouseley is a veteran equality campaigner who was appointed to a

senior advisory role with the English Football Association. But

now he's quitting, has football failed to tackle its race problem?

Lord Ouseley, welcome to HARDtalk. for field

for several years advising the FA's council on matters of race and the

quality. You have announced that you are quitting, why? I am

stepping down from the council because I automatically will lose

my place by resigning from the race equality advisory group, which I

was appointed to four years ago. It is a voluntary, advisory position.

It was set up by the FA to advise the board on race equality matters

in football. We reached a high point, a low point I should say

over one year ago with some major incidents in football. Luis Suarez,

John Terry's cases. During that period a lot of things happened

that undermined of the processes of the FA. I felt throughout that

process it compromised my own position as chair of his advisory

group. At the end of the process, which we respected as a process, I

asked the chairman of the FA to bring together all the football

authorities and all concerned and explain what went wrong, why it

went wrong, how we are going to make sure it doesn't happen again,

he was unable to do that. My position in going public about what

I felt happened made my position untenable. You mentioned Kick It

Out, Kick It Out was founded by you 20 years ago. That is right. It has

been a leading advocate of addressing race equality issues

inside the professional game. the amateur game. You mentioned a

John Terry, Louise Burrows, these big cases which raised questions

about racism at the top of the English game, your message seems to

be that you failed? 20 years ago I stopped going to professional

football. It was a dangerous place to go for black people. It was

violent both in terms of physical and other forms of horrendous abuse.

We have all that landscape. Kick It Out wanted to educate and campaign

on changes that need to be made. Legislation that has been brought

in over the last 20 years has helped deal with the criminality

associated with that period. I think the game is one where you can

go to football and you can have an experience that is much better than

it was. Women are going back to football, children, when they can

afford it first dart as a black man you do not want to go and watch

football and feel there is a very real possibility that some of the

top players on the pitch are either racist, through and through, or at

least are using abusive racist language on the field of play.

can afford it. The incidents we have seen raise real questions

about that. Of course. I am not suggesting there is no problem.

Otherwise I would be running around with the FA and all the other

authorities. The reality is, it is better than it was but there are

still issues to be grappled with. We do not want to over exaggerate

the extent of that compared to how it was. My concern is that at the

top end of the game you set the example, if you go to professional

football, you do not know what is going on on the pitch. You may

think you do. If you go to local amateur football you will hear it.

Schoolboys, schoolgirl football, the work that has been done his re-

education. BR receiving a lot of that hard edge being taken away. --

you are saying. We have to make sure these high-profile incidents

are removed from the game. It sends out the wrong messages. And I

understand that point and thoroughly. It leads me to this

basic question, taking the John Terry affair, the former England

captain and Chelsea captain, he was filmed using what is now clear is

abusive language which included a racial epithet towards a black

player on the field. It was only 11 months later that he was punished

by the FA. In the interim he had been through a court he was

acquitted by -- of racist behaviour by a court. How could it take 11

months? It has happened. It was a disastrous period for all of us

concern. The FA have not come clean and said during the last 11 months

these things went wrong. The manager has undermined the process.

Here are the senior adviser, did you tell people at the very top of

the FA they needed to come clean and say we got this entirely wrong?

Absolutely, yes. The situation is one where the FA's processes were

undermined from day one. John Terry was able to articulate to the court

that he needed plenty of time before being tried. There was

another delay before the FA came in. It is the undermining of the FA

process, which undermined black players themselves. Someone is

innocent until proven guilty, the longer it goes on, the longer you

stay quiet. We were being berated for that. The FA itself allowed its

processes to be undermined, it waited 11 months before dishing out

punishment. Even then they did not explain why the punishment was not

what people thought it should be the stuff Jason Roberts and others

have been very critical of Kick It Out. -- should be. They feel that

you did not want to rock the boat. It did not want to speak out early

on the John Terry and Luis Suarez case because you were too

comfortable inside the system. is a point of criticism that can be

made and it was made. There were several other criticisms. We had

moved away from racism and where embracing all forms of

discrimination. Secondly, we had inadequate resources. Thirdly, we

were too close to the football authorities because we relied on

their funding to exist. A whole range of criticisms. I think

legitimate. We are talking about a small amount of professional

footballers, but an important lot. What we did say to them, there is a

process. That is a process he should not undermine. Once a charge

has been brought, you cannot be making comments on that.

process was being undermined by the club's. They wrote insistent there

was no killed, the players had done nothing wrong. -- guilt. It was

undermined from the very get go. Why did you not respond to that?

That was being done all the time. We always challenged the regulatory

body. We could not challenge the police. Yes, we recognise that. We

were doing so all the time. To be blunt about it, when we look back

professional football over the last 12 months or so, do you believe the

evidence suggests the professional clubs do not take seriously

allegations of racism? I think the problem is in the professional

ranks players have a value. They have a contract. In most cases they

have a selling on value. Most professional clubs do not take

action against their players. They wait for the regulatory body to do

so. Normally, an allegation is made about one of your employees, you

take action. You carry out investigations and so on. Clubs

usually defend their players first. If they do not bring a charge that

is fine. In the incidents we are talking about, that is what

happened. The process was undermined by clubs, manages

defending those individuals. Making comments when there were

proceedings pending. That was wrong. We did not see it as our position

to undermine the process ourselves. You have talked about the

importance of the top professionals and sending messages out. What we

now know is that the FA concluded that John Terry's abusive words

were said by way of an insult. That is a racially abusive insult to

Anton Ferdinand, yet he remains at Chelsea. He is captain of Chelsea

when he is not injured. He announced his retirement from

England and the captaincy of England, but he is still a major

figure in English professional football. The Observer newspaper in

an editorial said most major institutions would sack a senior

figure guilty of saying what he said. As an equality campaign and a

football fan, a man who has followed the game all of your life,

what do you think of the fact that John Terry is still a huge figure

in English professional football today could do much that is a

situation that governs football. today? The Football Association

deals with these offences when they occur. All these things are dealt

with by the regulatory body. The processor that follows and the

results and the outcome of mean that his son play area action has

been taken, the process has been followed and the sentence has been

passed. -- disciplinary action. We act like nothing has happened in

the past. A very delicate answer. Should he have been sacked?

Football has got double standards. There is a lot of hypocrisy. There

is no ethical standing amongst those who lead football, whether in

the FA or the leadership of clubs. They protect their assets. In your

opinion, given everything you have fought for, should he have been

If you look at other players where people have gone to prison and come

out, they have been given other contracts. If it is a sick game if

that is the reality. It is a sick game. There is no standard

procedure in that a club will take a stance to get rid of their most

popular player when he has racially abused someone. We seek to get the

football authorities to set that standard. It is a disgrace. What

else seems to be a disgrace, and recent anonymous survey of

professional footballers found that 25% or more of these professionals

say that they have heard other players using abusive, racist

language on the field of play. If it is as prevalent as that, I would

have to ask you, for more than 25 we use of what you have done, what

have at you achieved? I am questioning if you have lied over

25 years. What has been achieved in our society, the programmes and

investment in trying to deal with the issue of prejudice within

society, because it is people who come to football. People who bring

their attitudes as part of our society through the education

system, who bring the prejudices and display them. Football has not

created that. It provides an environment that enables people to

come and express themselves in horrendous ways. The whole nature

of football and its tribalism and the culture that goes on in the

dressing room enables those things to happen. An external campaign can

do so much. It is the people at the top to have the power and resources

that can transform it and say they will not tolerate this sort of

behaviour. Starting at the very top, with the world body. That is Sep

Blatter. Some of the things with English football, he said that we

do not want players with any game, if words spoken, should get over it,

shake hands and be won. To some extent he was misunderstood. As a

court statement, that is absurd. is also a mindset. It is a mindset.

But he is a lot that goes on in the field of sport all the time.

Someone will say something that is totally unacceptable. People will

immediately say that that was out of order. I understand. We are

trying to change people's attitudes. You talked about football being a

mirror of society. You suggest that football cannot read, it had to

accept. Football can lead. I'll tell you one way. This is where the

more militant voices are being heard. When the supporters voiced

their races chance, black players in particular are now saying that

we will not tolerate it. An international player from Ghana who

played in Italy, he led a walkout when his team was being, and he in

particular, was being abused racially. Sepp Blatter did not like

that. He said players should not run away. That is where footballers

can show leadership. Telling crowds. There is a process that you can

follow that means you should not be in a position where you have to

feel that you must walk off. That process is someone is abusing you,

you tell the referee. If the referee does nothing about it, you

and your colleagues could insist that you're not going to stay on

the field. We have got two examples. Sep Blatter made it feel quite

clear that what they did was unacceptable. But they were put in

a position where they had no other close. We had a game between

Swansea and Norwich quite recently where a former hot Spurs player was

being abused playing for Norwich. He told the referee. He stopped the

game. He called for action to be taken. It was. Police got involved.

The matter was dealt with. That is how it has got to be. There are

processes in place if we can get people to follow what. Were to seem

to be suggesting is that it is very tough to turn around institutions

and mind sets. I want to move away from football. I want to talk about

one of the institution that has figured in your life, because used

to run what was known as the Commission for Racial Equality at a

time when due relations between black and police communities were

hard. I spoke to a woman whose son was brutally murdered in a racist

attack 20 years ago. She said to me that she feared that some of the

progress in race relations that had been made since then was being

rolled back. She suggested that one of the key problems was the police

were still not addressing the fact that they were institutionally

racist. Would you figure? She is absolutely right. The problem we

have with any institution as we try and bring about change over the

past 25-30 years is that institutions recognise, such as the

police, that there is a problem. They have to do something about it.

The Macpherson report... Several years after the death of Stephen

Lawrence and at the same time keep it out was started, it quite

clearly pointed to the failure of the police to recognise that it is

not about just simply someone being prejudiced. It is the institutional

nature of the culture and organisation. They then shifted

from 2000. There was a movement in working through the implementation.

They get to a point where they become complacent. The politics

changes. Mac frisson said the number of minority police officers

should reflect society in London. In London, 29% is a minority. It

only 10% of the police force is minority. How do you enforce

change? We have got a framework. You cannot seek, as in some Chief

Police officers are talking, that we are only going to change if we

change the law. There is nothing that can't be changed if the will

is there. But not too positive discrimination. Not at all. That is

what they are saying. My position is that most of the people who are

enthusiastic about joining the police and the minority communities

have lost confidence. Some have left. Some are working their time

out. I spoke to one of the most senior black police officers. A

Muslim working in the force. The disillusionment is that we had a

momentum during the early part of this century in which a lot of

those people lost the enthusiasm. They can see the blockages. You can

move so far and then you're not able to go forward. That

disillusionment has spread out. People do not want to join the

police service. And with all the retrenching that is taking place

because of the difficult economic situation, it is harder to build up

momentum again. But you can do it if you really want to. I think any

institution that wants to do what can do what. I would say that John

Stevens carried that momentum when he was the head of the match back

in the early part of the century. What about the present-day? Are you

saying that they do not really have the will to deliver a sweeping

change that to say is still needed. It he wanted to do what, that is

the only thing I can see. He is not making it happen. He is the head

honcho. He and Boris Johnson have to make it happen. A final thought,

we have talked football and policing. We have had in the

context in the struggle of racial equality. We talked about the 20

years fight that you have waged. It sounds as though you fear that some

of the progress made in the earlier days is now actually being rolled

back. Is that how you feel? Inevitably, if you in these

situations, you are going backwards. There is no doubt society has got a

greater level of integration and people who feel they belong here. I

think in terms of race relations, we often move one step forward and

a couple back. We have got to take the positives we have achieved and

build on those. We need to recognise there is still so far to

go. If there is rolling back. People get to the level where they

become complacent. We have done that. We have got a programme and

policies. They hope those processes work. But they do not necessarily.