Contents

• List of Tables vii

• Notes on Contributors viii

• Acknowledgements xvii

1. Introduction

   Imran Awan and Irene Zempi 1

2. 1Englishness and Football Cultures: Belonging, Race and the Nation

   John Solomos 5

3. 2Antisemitism in Football

   Emma Poulton 19

4. 3Spot Kick on Racism: Marcus Rashford and Criminally Damaging Penalty Shoot-Outs

   Matt Long and Catherine Armstrong 44

5. 4‘England till I Die’: Memoirs of a South Asian Football Fan

   Amjid Khazir 59

6. 5Racism in Football: Perspectives from Two Sides of the Atlantic

   Christos Kassimeris 68

7. 6A Critical Analysis of Past and Present Campaigns to Challenge Online Racism in English Professional Football

   Daniel Kilvington, Jack Black, Mark Doidge, Thomas Fletcher, Colm Kearns, Katie Liston, Theo Lynn, Gary Sinclair and Pierangelo Rosati 83

8. 7Homophobia, Hate Crime and Men’s Professional Football

   Connor Humphries and Rory Magrath 103

9. 8Women Footballers in the United Kingdom: Feminism, Misogynoir and Hate Crimes

   Jayne Caudwell, Jane Healy and Aarti Ratna 124

10. 9Trans Exclusion in Football

    Ben Colliver 143

11. 10Tackling Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia in Football: What (If Anything) Works?

    Liz Crolley and Jon Garland 159

12. 11Prosecuting Hate Crime in Football

    Nick Hawkins 181

• Index 199

List of Tables

1. 2.1Antisemitic incidents recorded by the Community Security Trust 24
2. 2.2Community Security Trust’s categories of antisemitism 25
3. 2.3Reports of antisemitism in professional football to Kick It Out 27
4. 7.1Reports of discrimination based on homophobia, biphobia and transphobia to Kick It Out 114

Notes on Contributors

• Catherine Armstrong is Reader in Modern History at Loughborough University. She is also Director of People and Culture for the School of Social Sciences and Humanities there. Her work focuses on race and racism, especially the long legacy of the history of the institution of slavery on both sides of the Atlantic. She is author of three monographs on United States history, the most recent being American Slavery, American Imperialism (Cambridge University Press, 2020). She is also an oral historian and explores the way the method can be used as an empowering and therapeutic tool with groups who might otherwise find it difficult to get their voices heard.

• Imran Awan is Professor of Criminology at Birmingham City University, specializing in understanding hate crimes, tackling extremism, and Islamophobia. He has written extensively on Islamophobia and is author and editor of a number of books in the field, including the first-ever international handbook on the subject, the Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia (Routledge, 2019, with Irene Zempi). He is currently project lead for a large Economic and Social Research Council research grant looking into Muslims in Birmingham and COVID-19. He is an independent advisor to the United Kingdom government on Islamophobia and also a member of the SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) sub-panel group advising the government on behavioural aspects in relation to COVID-19 and its impacts on local communities. His impact goes beyond academia as he works with communities and politicians to raise awareness of Islamophobic hate crimes. Professor Awan regularly contributes to media debates around issues impacting Muslims, and his research has featured in leading stories for The New York Times, the BBC’s Panorama series, Channel 4 News, The Independent and Time magazine.

• Jack Black is Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, where he is affiliated with the Centre for Culture, Media and Society and research lead for the Anti-Racism Research Group. An interdisciplinary researcher, with interests in psychoanalysis, media and cultural studies, his research focuses predominantly on issues of political representation, with specific attention given to examples of race and racism. He has examined these interests across a diverse range of topics – including sport, comedy, political ecology and nationalism/national identity – drawing from both film/television analysis and qualitative methodologies. He has publications in a number of international journals and is the author of Race, Racism and Political Correctness in Comedy: A Psychoanalytic Exploration (Routledge, 2021) and the forthcoming The Psychosis of Race: A Lacanian Approach to Racism and Racialization (Routledge). He also co-authored the edited collection Sport and Physical Activity in Catastrophic Environments (Routledge, 2023, with Jim Cherrington). He is currently Associate Editor for the International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure and is part of a research project funded by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, entitled ‘Tackling online hate in football’. Jack tweets at @jackstblack.

• Jayne Caudwell is Associate Professor of Social Sciences, Gender and Sexualities in the Department of Social Sciences and Social Work at Bournemouth University. She is Programme Leader for BA Sociology and teaches students across sociology, social anthropology and criminology at Bournemouth University. She has had an enjoyable career within the field of sociocultural analysis of sport and leisure, especially related to social justice and equality, feminist theory and activism, LGBTQ+ inclusion, theories of sexuality, and qualitative research methodologies.

• Ben Colliver is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Birmingham City University. His research interests include hate crime, online hate speech and broader issues of inclusion in different spaces, including the night-time economy and football. He completed his PhD at Kingston University and offered a reconceptualization on how transphobic hate crime is understood. He has published widely in the area of transphobic hate crime, representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in different media forms, and online hate speech. He is also a member of the British Society of Criminology ‘Hate Crime Network’, and a steering group member.

• Liz Crolley is Professor in the University of Liverpool Management School. Her research in football has incorporated a range of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, including nationalism and national identity expressed via football and football writing; aspects of the history, politics, business and sociology of football, with particular interest in Spain, Italy, Argentina and Mexico; and inequality in language, racism and gender. She has published widely in these areas and has also worked with a range of organizational bodies in football to influence policy on issues such as racism, inclusivity and corporate social responsibility at club level (in England, Spain, Italy, Mexico and Argentina), national level (the Football Association, the Premier League, and Real Federación Española de Fútbol) and confederation level (UEFA and CONCACAF). Liz has co-authored three books: Football and European Identity (Routledge, 2006), Football, Europe and the Press (Frank Cass, 2002, with David Hand) and Football, Nationality and the State (Routledge, 2014, with Vic Duke). She also co-edited Fútbol, Futebol. Soccer: Football in the Americas (Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2007, with Rory Miller). She is also known for her work in the field of management education. She is an active contributor to the work of the Quality Assurance Agency and recently chaired a national review of Subject Benchmark Statements.

• Mark Doidge is Sociologist and Senior Lecturer in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University. His research focuses on making sport an inclusive and sustainable space for all. In particular, his research has focused on social activism among football fans across Europe, environmentalism, antiracism, supporting refugees and anti-violence. He is part of the ‘Tackling online hate in football’ project (funded by Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council) and has won funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the Wellcome Trust, among others. He is the author and co-author of a number of books, including Ultras: The Passion and Performance of Contemporary Football Fandom (Manchester University Press, 2020, with Radosław Kossakowski and Svenja Mintert), Collective Action and Football Fandom (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, with Jamie Cleland, Peter Millward and Paul Widdop), Transforming Sport: Knowledges, Practices, Structures (Routledge, 2018, with Thomas F. Carter and Daniel Burdsey) and Football Italia (Bloomsbury, 2015). Mark is also currently a trustee of the British Sociological Association and convenor of this organization’s Sport Study Group, a committee member of Football Supporters Europe and a member of the advisory board for the Football Supporter Association’s Fans For Diversity.

• Thomas Fletcher is Reader in the School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management at Leeds Beckett University. His primary research interests are in equality, diversity and inclusion, social justice and families within the contexts of sport, leisure and events. He is the author of the award-winning Negotiating Fatherhood: Sport and Family Practices (Palgrave, 2020) and editor of Family Events: Practices, Displays and Intimacies (Routledge, 2022). Tom is Co-Investigator on the ‘Tackling online hate in football’ project funded by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council). Tom is currently Managing Editor of the journal Leisure Studies and Associate Editor of Events Management and Sport in Society. During 2017–21, Tom was Chair of the Leisure Studies Association.

• Jon Garland is Professor of Criminology in the Department of Sociology. He has conducted extensive research into hate crime, prisons, far-Right groups, racism in rural and isolated areas of England, policing, and racism, antiracism and disorder in football. Jon is currently undertaking a project examining the provision of food in women’s prisons (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council). He is author of Hate Crime: Impact, Causes, and Consequences (Sage, 2009, with Neil Chakraborti) and Racism and Anti-Racism in Football (Palgrave, 2001, with Michael Rowe); and he is editor of The Future of Football (Frank Cass, 2000, with Michael Rowe and Dominic Malcolm), Youth Culture, Popular Music and the End of ‘Consensus’ (Routledge, 2015, as part of the Subcultures Network) and Rural Racism, Responding to Hate Crime: The Case for Connecting Policy and Research (Policy Press, 2015, with Neil Chakraborti). He is currently working on an edited book about hate crime perpetration (with Jo Smith and Irene Zempi). He has also had numerous journal articles and reports published on issues of hate crime, racism, the far Right, prisons, policing, cultural criminology and identity. He is on the Editorial Board of Ethnic and Racial Studies. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Stop Hate UK, a member of the board of the International Network for Hate Studies, and a member of the steering committee of the British Society of Criminology Hate Crime Network. He also undertakes equality and diversity work with a number of prisons across the male and female estates.

• Nick Hawkins is a barrister at Normanton Chambers and Director of The Hawkins Consultancy. Following a 22-year career in the Royal Navy, playing sport around the world and experiencing a variety of cultures, Nick joined the Crown Prosecution Service in 1999. He spent 15 years as a Chief Crown Prosecutor, mainly in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. During this time, Nick was the national lead for football matters, working nationally and internationally and attending two World Cups as a liaison prosecutor. He has prosecuted every type of offence associated with football and helped develop national policy. He has also worked with other sports bodies advising on combatting hate crime. Nick has an LLM in Sports Law and Practice from De Montfort University. A former Visiting Professor at the University of Portsmouth, Nick continues to write and speak on a variety of sports matters. He contributed a chapter (‘Hate crime in sport’) to the Routledge International Handbook on Hate Crime (2015).

• Jane Healy is Principal Academic and Deputy Head of the Department of Social Science and Social Work at Bournemouth University. As a criminologist, Jane’s research interests lie in the fields of victimology and hate crimes, and she completed her PhD on the experiences of victims of disability hate crimes within the criminal justice system. Jane is on the editorial board of the Safer Communities journal and her work has been published in Disability & Society and Criminology and Criminal Justice.

• Connor Humphries is a PhD student in the Department of Sport, Health Sciences and Social Work at Oxford Brookes University. His research focuses on decreasing homophobia and the changing nature of contemporary masculinities within amateur sport.

• Christos Kassimeris is Professor, political scientist and programme coordinator of the MPA Public Administration at the European University Cyprus. He is the author of European Football in Black and White: Tackling Racism in Football (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), Football Comes Home: Symbolic Identities in European Football (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), Discrimination in Football (Routledge, 2021) and The Politics of Football (Routledge, 2023). He is also the editor of Anti-Racism in European Football: Fair Play for All (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009) and co-editor of Exploring the Cultural, Ideological and Economic Legacies of Euro 2012 (Routledge, 2014, with Peter Kennedy). He has several publications in political science journals and book chapters in edited collections. He is a member of the editorial board for the journals Soccer & Society and Frontiers: Sports Politics, Policy & Law, and book series editor for Lexington Research in Sports, Politics, and International Relations (Rowman & Littlefield).

• Colm Kearns is Postdoctoral Researcher with the ‘Tackling online hate in football’ project (funded by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council). He is the co-author of two recent reports on the impact of the pandemic on Irish media; RTE and Covid-19: Diversity and Public Needs and The Impact of Covid-19 on Ireland’s Independent Radio Sector. Colm holds a PhD in Communications from Dublin City University, and his thesis centres on the intersection of sport, advertising and national identity. He has published papers on those topics in journals such as Television and New Media, Sport in Society and Communication and Sport, in addition to having a chapter featured in the recently published collection Sport, the Media and Ireland: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Cork University Press, 2020).

• Amjid Khazir is Director of Media Cultured, an education and training provider based in the United Kingdom. As a social entrepreneur and with over two decades of experience in antiracism and community cohesion, Amjid has been widely acclaimed for his pioneering and benchmark work to tackle hate, Islamophobia, antisemitism and extremism. He is an award-winning educator, public speaker and has produced internationally screened short films. His work has featured in studies by leading universities and political institutions. Following the death of his uncle Mohammed Zabir in 2011 (post an alleged Islamophobic assault), Amjid has dedicated his life to challenging all forms of hate and promoting dialogue between different groups, including working with refugees and emerging communities. His use of film, sport and art as tools to inform and to promote unity and understanding is central to a unique portfolio of work. Media Cultured has worked with academic institutions across the United Kingdom and alongside the likes of the Premier League and the United Nations, and delivered sessions for the NSPCC, the Prince’s Trust and the National Citizen Service. In 2020, Media Cultured won the UK Enterprise Award for its provision of racism and extremism awareness training, a Business Hero Award from the British Chambers of Commerce and, in 2021, a regional Excellence Award for their work on equality, cultural understanding, and inclusion. Amjid’s personal achievements have also been recognized globally with many awards, and in 2014 he was a guest of the Obama administration, meeting with activists, academics and colleagues from across the United States. Furthermore, Amjid is Vice-Chair of his local SACRE (Standard Advisory Council on Religious Education), a school governor, Royal Society of Arts Fellow, a Health Watch Champion and a member of AWON (A World Of Neighbours), based in Sweden.

• Daniel Kilvington is Reader and Course Director in Media and Cultural Studies at Leeds Beckett University. His teaching and research focuses on ‘race’, sport and new media. He has published a number of articles, and is author of books including Sport, Racism and Social Media (Routledge, 2015), British Asians, Exclusion and the Football Industry (Routledge, 2016), and Sport and Discrimination (Routledge, 2017). His current research explores antiracist sports coaching, sports journalism and online harms, and the lack of ethnic diversity in leadership and governance positions within English professional football. He has secured a number of external research grants from funders such as the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the English Premier League and the English Cricket Board. He has used this funding to critically investigate discrimination within sport(s) and to design countermeasures for transformative change. He is co-founder of the annual Sport and Discrimination Conference and founded the Talking Race podcast. He is the trustee of the Zesh Rehman Foundation and works in collaboration with Football Against Racism in Europe to challenge online hate and extremism in European football.

• Katie Liston is Senior Lecturer in the Social Sciences of Sport and Senior Researcher in the Sport and Exercise Sciences Institute, Ulster University. She has published extensively on all aspects of sport and co-edited the award-winning The Business and Culture of Sport (Cengage, with Joseph A. Maguire and Mark Falcous). Katie’s research interests centre on the theme of identity and its expressions in terms of nationalism, gender, the sport ethic and media representation. Together with colleagues in the ‘Tackling online hate in football’ project (funded by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council), she is examining online hate in football, and her focus is on sexism and misogyny. Katie is a regular contributor to radio and print media in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

• Matt Long is University Teacher in Criminology and Sociology at the University of Loughborough. He volunteers as a university chaplain. He spent 16 years at Nottingham Trent University after having started an academic career at Sheffield Hallam University. He has also guest lectured on sports coaching courses at Loughborough University and Coventry University. Matt is also a sports journalist and has authored more than 350 articles for both track and field athletics and boxing magazines. Some of his work has touched on racism in sport. He has served as a Great Britain Team manager and England Team coach in athletics and still competes into his fifties as a ‘white-collar’ boxer.

• Theo Lynn is Full Professor of Digital Business at Dublin City University Business School. Professor Lynn specializes in the role of digital technologies in transforming business and society. His main teaching areas are strategy, data analytics and digital marketing. He has been published widely and is Series Editor on Palgrave Studies in Digital Business & Enabling Technologies. He is a regular speaker at both academic and industry conferences. He is currently Co-Director at the Irish Institute of Digital Business and was formerly Principal Investigator at the Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce, (2011–18), Associate Dean at Dublin City University Business School (2015–17; 2020–21), Business Innovation Platform Director for Dublin City University (2015–16) and Director of the Leadership, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre at Dublin City University (2009–11). He has won over 250 grants, representing over €20 million in total project funding. He was Principle Investigator on the Horizon 2020 CloudLightning Project (2015–17) and the Horizon 2020 RECAP Project (2017–19); he is currently Principle Investigator on the Horizon 2020 RINNO project (2020–24) and the Horizon 2020 ERASMUS+ MENA-Preneurs Project (2021–23). Professor Lynn received a Bachelor in Business and Legal Studies, an MBS (Management Information Systems) and a PhD (Law), all from University College Dublin. He is an Expert Evaluator for the European Commission and is currently an International Research Fellow at the Information Society Law Center at the Università degli Studi di Milano. Professor Lynn has founded a number of companies, including Enki Information Systems, Educational Multimedia Group and Atomic Assets, the businesses of which have been acquired by Rochford Brady Group, Intuition and Cambridge University Press, respectively. He advises a number of domestic and international companies.

• Rory Magrath is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Sport, Health and Social Sciences at Solent University. His research focuses on decreasing homophobia and the changing nature of contemporary masculinities, with a specific focus on elite football in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Inclusive Masculinities in Contemporary Football: Men in the Beautiful Game (Routledge, 2017) and co-author of Out in Sport: The Experiences of Openly Gay and Lesbian Athletes in Competitive Sport (Routledge, 2016).

• Emma Poulton is Associate Professor in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University. Her research interests centre around football fan cultures, hate crime, identity and, in particular, antisemitism within the context of football. Emma has published in a range of international peer-reviewed journals, including Ethnic and Racial Studies, the International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, the International Review for the Sociology of Sport, the Sociology of Sport Journal, Sport in Society, Sociological Research Online, and Media, Culture & Society. She has also disseminated her work at numerous international conferences. Her research on antisemitism in English football has been recognized through invited Key Notes, including conferences organized by Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung in Berlin.

• Aarti Ratna is Associate Professor of Sociology at Northumbria University. Her writings are inspired by the politics and intellectual insights of women of colour. She uses their feminisms to challenge complex and transnational asymmetries of power and control in/through sport, leisure, popular culture and everyday life.

• Pierangelo Rosati is Associate Professor in Digital Business and Society at the University of Galway. Pierangelo has been working on a number of research projects on data analytics, the business value of IT, fintech, blockchain, cloud computing, and cybersecurity, many of them in direct collaboration with industry. His research has been widely published in leading academic journals, including European Accounting Review, Computers in Human Behaviour, the European Journal of Finance and New Media and Society.

• Gary Sinclair is Associate Professor in Marketing (specializing in consumer behaviour) at Dublin City University. He has also lectured at the University of Stirling, Technology University Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin. He is the co-lead of the Digital Economy and Society lab at the Irish Institute of Digital Business. Gary is the Irish principle investigator on a three-year project on ‘Online hate in football’ (funded by the Irish Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council). His research focuses on consumer culture primarily in the contexts of music, technology, sport and sustainability. His work has been widely published in a variety of top international peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Business Ethics, Marketing Theory and the European Journal of Marketing. His work has featured in mainstream media outlets such as CNN, ABC, CBC, the Irish Times, RTÉ and The Conversation. Gary is Associate Editor for the Journal of Marketing Management. He also guest-edited a special issue on music and marketing for the European Journal of Marketing.

• John Solomos is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick. He has researched and written widely on the history and contemporary forms of race and ethnic relations in Britain, theories of race and racism, the politics of race, equal opportunity policies, multiculturalism and social policy, race and football, and racist movements and ideas. His most recent books are The Unfinished Politics of Race: Histories of Political Participation, Migration and Multiculturalism (Cambridge University Press, 2023, with Les Back, Michael Keith and Kalbir Skukra), Race, Ethnicity and Social Theory (Routledge, 2023) and Race and Racism in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, 4th edition). His most recent edited books are Race and Ethnicity in Pandemic Times (Routledge, 2022), An Introduction to Sociology (Sage, 2022, co-edited with Karim Murji and Sarah Neal) and Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader (Routledge, 2022, 3rd edition, co-edited with Les Back). He is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Ethnic and Racial Studies, which publishes 16 issues a year. He is also co-editor of the book series on Racism, Resistance and Social Change for Manchester University Press (with Satnam Virdee and Aaron Winter) and General Editor of Routledge Resources Online – Race and Racism.

• Irene Zempi is Associate Professor of Criminology at Nottingham Trent University. Irene has published widely on issues of hate crime, researcher positionality and ethnography. She is the co-editor of the books Misogyny as Hate Crime (Routledge, 2021, with Jo Smith) and Routledge International Handbook of Islamophobia (Routledge, 2019, with Imran Awan). Irene is also the co-author of the books Student Textbook of Islamophobia (Routledge, 2019, with Imran Awan), Islamophobia: Lived Experiences of Online and Offline Victimisation (Policy Press, 2016, with Imran Awan) and Islamophobia, Victimisation and the Veil (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, with Neil Chakraborti). Irene is Chair of the British Society of Criminology Hate Crime Network, Lead of the NTU Hate Crime Research Group and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all of the authors who contributed to this edited collection.

Also, we would like to thank the staff at Bristol University Press for their support in the production of this text.

Last but not least, we would like to thank our colleagues and students at Birmingham City University and Nottingham Trent University, who encourage us to continue our work in challenging hate crime.

Imran Awan and Irene Zempi