There's an ugly side to the Beautiful Game and football legend Rio Ferdinand has clearly reached crisis point.
Who can blame him? Racism is rife in the sport and Rio has been racially abused his whole life.
His dad was spat at for being black and the former England defender and hundreds of other players face constant online abuse, such as messages with monkey and banana emojis and the awful N-word.
Now Rio wants to know why football authorities and social media companies aren’t doing more to shut it all down – and in his new heavy-hearted Amazon Prime docuseries, which launched on Friday, he called for serious measures.
“I’m exhausted. Dealing with racism is tiring,” says the 44-year-old dad of four in Rio Ferdinand’s Tipping Point, which will also tackle issues of sexuality and mental health.
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“When I was growing up, there was racist stuff said but you just had to deal with it, let stuff slide. My dad was a black man who went out with a white lady and that was almost seen as criminal.
“He got spat at. I’ve got kids and I don’t want them to have to deal with this. We should have evolved past this. Why am I having to explain this stuff to my kids?”
The documentary laid out the cold, hard facts. Football-related arrests for racist and indecent chanting were at their highest level for five years in the 2019/20 season, and there was a 48% increase in online racist abuse for the 2020/21 season.
When Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final shootout, their social media pages were flooded with racism.
“Colour meant nothing when we were winning, but as soon as we lose, that’s the reason,” says Rio. In possibly the most depressing scene, Rio visits Burnley to try to understand why there is booing when players take the knee.
It comes after an incident in June 2020 when a Burnley FC fan flew an offensive ‘White Lives Matter’ banner over the Etihad Stadium. Rio is left stunned when fans explain that people were just “proving the point that all lives matter”.
He says: “People are more upset about taking the knee than about racism. Do they want change or not?”
Desperate to make people accountable, Rio also visits a data mining company that analyses online abuse and can track down who is responsible – and he’s had some success, gathering evidence of hate crime for the police.
He also wants current players to join forces to make corporations take notice.
This is a man who seems drained by constant racism, but his determination to take action is a goal worth fighting for.
READ MORE: Leeds fan who racially abused West Ham's Michail Antonio given ban and suspended jail term
