Why do we keep having clowns having a go at Sterling?!
Being racially abused isn't something he's chosen, nor should he be some sort of spokesman on it.
This type of petty point scoring is hardly helpful.
I find your attitude and others in this thread who criticise Sterling over this disgraceful.
on Saturday morning on MOTD they looked at the ‘Black Friday’ article in Italy and Richards even mentioned that Sterling can’t be the go to person for every racist incident.
Sterling is entitled to keep his opinion to himself, he’s also entitled to pick and choose his battles. You seem to resent the fact that he’s called out teams and media in the past. I see nothing wrong in him only responding to the racist abuse that’s aimed at him, and not everyone - that’s so sad to have to say such a thing.
However, it’s the likes of Sterling and him highlighting the issues that means every club in the PL has to take action swiftly against their own supporters - unlikely to have happened a few years ago. Banning them for life may finally start to have an effect.
Your only contribution to this thread is to criticise Sterling (who is black) for not publicly denouncing a man who has been making monkey gestures in the direction of black people? Forgive me for finding that a little strange and somewhat uncomfortable.
Morally speaking, you would assume you’d have a greater interest in calling out the imbecile in the stands; yet you’d rather take a partisan pop at a City player instead. Bizarre.
Sterling is not some sort of racism police. He isn’t obligated to make public declarations every time a person within football is racist either. Taking a pop at him is at best, trivial. At worst, it’s sinister.
You’re a lot better than this.
I think some of you (well all of you) are missing the point...I don't think Sterling has any duty to be a spokesperson against racism, or has any obligation to do anything.
The problem is, he has made himself a spokesperson against racism through his own actions. He stirred the pot because he took it upon himself to attack the press for being racist, except the examples he gave weren't of racism, they were of negative stories about himself which he had perceived to be racist. The problem straight away is this is a potentially dishonest argument, since these stories by en large were very similar to criticisms other white England players have routinely received in the past. For example he was criticised for deciding he was too tired to play an England game. For being one of the worst players in an England squad that lost to Iceland. For showing off a tattoo of a gun he had gotten. For being caught playing round with women who weren't his girlfriend. These aren't racist criticisms. They are criticisms, and it's very difficult to tie them to racism just by saying "well your newspaper is racist" when the newspaper can point out literally 1,000 similar articles directed at other celebrities or sports stars. Well intended maybe but poorly thought out.
He has then come out publicly and said that teams should be docked 9 points if a member of the crowd engages in racist behaviour, specifically in reference to a team he had just played against (Chelsea). He's very vocal about racism against England players, against himself. He's received a lot of praise as a result (rightly to an extent as it takes an amount of courage). Suddenly though when it's the other team getting racially abused, or racism within his own squad, he has nothing at all to say.
There seems to be a fear of pointing out the convenience or actual daftness of this kind of approach (and it's not just Sterling who's guilty), and how it is actually counter productive. Punishing a whole football team and all of it's fans because one person is racist for example. This is a really dumb thing to suggest. Doing so would obviously fuel racism rather than solve it. How would you like it for example if you and all your colleagues were punished or docked pay at work because someone elsewhere in your company said something racist? Would this be fair? Would this make anyone less racist or would it anger people who are a little bit racist into being more racist and more open about it?
Now Sterling is definitely right to say there is a big problem. Problem is, when it happens in his own house and he suddenly has nothing bad to say about it, how much strength does anything he says actually carry? Next time Sterling brings up racism, what is the first question back to him going to be? "well what about when your own fans did it then?"
I am being unfair on him because yeah, but I don't think in the way that is being suggested. I'm not interested in point scoring. Every team has at least one idiot in the crowd who would do the same as the bloke on Sunday. At least one United fan has been ejected from the ground this season for similar behaviour. I'm unfair on Sterling because I'm using him as the main example of the wider problem with how I think this is being dealt with.
People seem to want to go to war with racism as if it IS a point scoring thing, or a way of getting on a moral high horse. Football going to war against racism...until it doesn't benefit your team. How many Liverpool fans think Suarez is a racist? How many Chelsea fans think John Terry and not Anton Ferdinand is the bad guy? How many England fans care that less than a week after the Bulgaria game, another game, in England, had to be abandoned, due to racism? The ITV commentators on that very England game were literally criticising the match officials for being Italian because apparently all Italians are slimy racists, whilst denouncing racism and calling for all manner of punishments against the team/country of Bulgaria. You tell me what this sort of convenience outrage approach gets you, other than more racism?
How come whenever there's an incident, Sky Sports, et al, only seem to want to talk to black footballers/ex footballers about it. Is this not making the issue worse by effectively seperating one group of people from another?
It isn't ridiculous at all to expect people to be consistent and responsible with what is a quite important issue. Sterling is one of those people and he's ducked out of doing exactly that, I'm afraid. I bring it up because I think he's milked the situation to his advantage rather than address the seriousness of it, and that's probably the very unpopular part of the opinion, but the problem I have with it is that it actually FUELS the problem of racism, because all it does is bring it to the surface as a form of point scoring or weapon to hit someone with. Then eventually one guy doing monkey mannerisms in a crowd becomes 20 guys.
Anyway rant over.
Respect my complete lack of authoritah, mush.
On a footie forum!!!