The England under 21s football team played Serbia last night in a very important qualifying game in which England won 1-0 and thereby qualified for the Euro 2013.
However the result, and qualification was overshadowed by some horrific scenes at the final whistle.
As the England players and officials celebrated, they were attacked by their Serbian opponents and
racially abused by the home fans. You can read more about the incident here. It makes hard reading.
So why am I blogging about this? racism
Firstly I think it's disgusting that people are still abused because of their colour. As a Christian I believe that God made each one of us in His own image (Psalm 139) and made us to be the apple of His eye (Psalm 17:8, Zech 2:8). Galatians 3 makes it very clear that we are all equally valuable before God and means that if your balck, white, gay, straight, rich or poor...God loves you and accepts you just as you are.
As I have come to know God in greater and deeper ways, His heart is changing mine and this is why when I see scenes such as we saw in Serbia last night I'm overcome with anger, sadness and compassion. Just as He is.
Secondly, I want us to remember that this is bigger than football. Many people who read about the game will simply say 'that's football yobs for you.' However I hate this attitude. Not only does that put me, as a football fan in a bracket, it also displaces the real issue. It's like saying that football is the problem and not racism.
Let me ask you this, if you removed football from Serbia would there still be incidents of racist behaviour? Of course there would.
This is far bigger than football. This is a culture, a nation clearly struggling with some degree of racial hatred lingering in it's roots. Before Euro 2012 (hosted in Poland and Ukraine this year) Panorama did a programme exposing some of the issues in this part of Europe and the programme can be seen here. Essentially I want encourage us to not make this about football, but rather to make it about the need for change in nations such as Serbia, Poland and Ukraine.
But the big question is how? How do we do this? How do we implement change on such a scale?
What do you think?
Personally, I do not think this is done through hatred or revenge. It's done through education, love and example.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
