For a player of his stature, Lilian Thuram had an unremarkable record in Glasgow.
The World Cup winning defender suffered defeat to Rangers in the Champions League and a Gary Caldwell-inspired Scotland at Hampden. He didn’t even make it off the bench at Parkhead against Celtic.
It’s been sixteen years since he retired but it’s now, in the second act of his career as an anti-racism campaigner, that Thuram has left a lasting impression on the city
Kelvingrove Museum’s new permanent exhibition, ‘Glasgow – A City of Empire’ opened late last year to explore Glasgow’s links to slavery, colonisation and its legacy. In need of some educational materials to help guide audiences through the display, they turned to the Lilian Thuram Foundation for support.
Thuram retired in 2008 after being diagnosed with a heart condition and while a post-football career in television would have been a natural fit – he’s a serious but charismatic character, an engaging public speaker and a fan of colourful scarfs – the former Juventus player’s focus was always on a bigger subject than the beautiful game.
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“I asked myself lots of questions about racism from an early age,” Thuram says, speaking ahead of a Strathclyde University event on race, equality and heritage that he would be the guest speaker at.
His mother moved the family from Guadeloupe to France in 1981 and, as a young boy, he suffered discrimination at the hands of his classmates. It would follow him into his professional career.
“When I watched football as a kid on television, I could see there was racism against black players,” he says. “I played and was subjected to racism and now my boys [Marcus and Khéphren] play and there’s still racism there.”
At Parma in 1999, Thuram stood up to a section of his own support who wanted him to leave on account of his skin colour. He endured monkey chants as a player both there and at Juventus. His eldest son, Marcus, has been outspoken on racist incidents in the Serie A, where he plays for Inter Milan.
In the later years of his career in both Italy and Spain, Thuram Snr. spoke to schoolchildren about racism and it was in Barcelona, on the cusp of retirement, that it was suggested he should start a foundation.
Opened in the same year he gave up the game, the Foundation is, according to Thuram, about “asking people to think outside the categories they were born into, to reach out to people as human beings and to break out of those racialised categories.” In the sixteen years since its inception, it’s contributed to a variety of initiatives across the world. That now includes Glasgow and the Kelvingrove Museum.
“It’s a really good opportunity for me and for the Foundation to question historical perspectives,” he says of the collaboration. “It’s important to understand that our societies in the West have been built upon the racialization of the world.”
Thuram has been an occasional visitor to Scotland since 2022. His initial trip involved anti-racism workshops with school kids from St Andrew’s and St Bride’s High School in East Kilbride.
“You can imagine growing up in Glasgow that you would have no awareness of the environment around you having any links to colonization,” he says. “Everyone has some form of prejudice inside them but don’t necessarily know where it comes from, so it’s important to allow kids to understand these prejudices.”
“Working with school kids, you get them to understand that they’re a product of racialization of the world and, aware of it or not, they can reproduce those hierarchies. So it’s good to catch them when they’re open to thinking about it,” he continues.
“They need to be aware of it so as not to reproduce it. These workshops also give the children the courage to call out when they spot something that’s racist.”
The Foundation also worked with curators at Kelvingrove before the ‘A City of Empire’ exhibition had been installed to develop the educational materials which, Thuram says, needed to be free of accusation or anger.
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“I want to bring the foundation’s experience to bear, that we can talk about these difficult questions in a calm and serene manner, without emotion getting in the way,” he says. “Because emotions often prevent you from getting any further in the discussion.”
Nelson Cummins, Curator of Legacies of Slavery and Empire at Kelvingrove, says this stems from Thuram’s own way of interacting with racism and its legacy.
“He very calmly says ‘these things happened’ and this what we need to do today to address the legacies of them.
“We’ve found that when he does public talks and engagements, people come away incredibly inspired and really want to do more of this anti-racism work.”
The only time during the afternoon with Thuram that he displays a flicker of frustration is when discussing his former professions’ inability to deal with discrimination against black players.
“It’s pretty obvious that football, like other areas of society, doesn’t take racism seriously at all,” he says.
“Racism survives within societies because some people want it to survive. Most of those that suffer racism in football are black players, but western society has been constructed to have contempt for black people; that’s just a fact.
“For example, when there’s racism on the pitch it’s the black player who draws attention to it because he’s conscious of it. Did the white players, the coaches, not hear it? Are they not aware? There are all these figures around football – the coaches, the white players, the officials – but the onus always falls on the black player to call it out.”
During the French summer, as the far-right National Rally party made political headway during snap parliamentary elections, it was the black players within the national football team who spoke out against their brand of extremism.
Indeed, it was Lilian’s son, Marcus, alongside Kylian Mbappe, who spoke most pointedly against them. While some of the white French players urged the public to vote, their opinions went no further.
“Why didn’t we hear white voices standing up to the extreme right?” asks Thuram, rhetorically.
Did the media ask the white players why they weren’t willing to say more?
"No," says Thuram.
“There’s a general form of hypocrisy around this topic. Journalists will never ask a white player why they haven’t spoken out or ask for their opinion on it. It’s as though racism is only of interest to those who are subjected to it.
“If white players were to intervene it would move things forward; it would be an issue shared across everybody.”
It’s perhaps not surprising that Marcus was outspoken on the topic given who his father is – “I made [Marcus and Khéphren] aware early on that they’re black and to be black meant something, and if they wanted a more just society where this doesn’t happen they needed to be aware of these things and question them” – but that doesn’t let his teammates off the hook.
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At least not everyone is putting their head in the sand when it comes to discrimination. Thuram praises the ‘courage’ of Kelvingrove to recognise the need to discuss Glasgow’s place in the world within a racial context.
“When you go to the museum, you’re looking to understand the past in order work out how you got to where you are now,” he explains. “That’s what this exhibition is about: It’s not solely about the past, it’s about understanding Glasgow and Scotland today.”
Lilian Thuram has left his mark in the city and it’s there for all to see.
