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Football and racism have gone hand in hand ever since the dawn of time. It has been a stain on the very soul of football. There have been several big-time incidents that have instigated several governing bodies and people to question the existence and emergence of such racist slurs. Racism is an unnecessary evil in the society and it must be eradicated at every level possible.
But just like a ray of light in the dark of night, Mohamed Salah has proved as a glowing example of the impact a football player can have apart from the confines of the sport. The Liverpool winger is adored and loved by millions of fans all across the globe. His popularity has played a humongous role in grabbing racism by its horns and tossing it aside. A recent study by the Immigration Policy Lab revealed that ever since Mohamed Salah arrived in Merseyside, North West England; hate crimes against the followers of Islam has reduced quite significantly in the particular area.
The research paper states that:
“We causally estimate the effect of Salah joining Liverpool F.C. on Islamophobic attitudes and behaviours using 936 county-month hate crime observations, 15 million tweets from U.K. soccer fans, and an original survey experiment of 8,060 Liverpool F.C. fans."
"We find that Merseyside county (home to Liverpool F.C.) experienced an 18.9% drop in hate crimes relative to a synthetic control, while no similar effect was found for other types of crime. We also find that Liverpool F.C. fans halved their rates of posting anti-Muslim tweets (a drop from 7.3% to 3.8% of tweets about Muslims) relative to fans of other top-flight English soccer clubs."
"The survey experiment suggests that these results may be driven by increased familiarity with Islam. Our findings indicate that positive exposure to outgroup role models can reveal new information that humanizes the outgroup writ large.”
This is particularly impressive because the football fans in England were notorious for their football hooliganism which eventually resulted in the hints of racism in their support. Such is the love for football which prompts the fans to do something that they haven't done before. If examples such as these are followed by people all across the world, then the world would definitely be a better place to live in.
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Nice article Viraj. Actually racism lifts its head mostly from prejudices borne out of ignorance and, in some cases, out of lack of communication. Understanding each other goes a long way in mitigating such prejudices and, I think, Mohamed Salah is a good example in this regard. Once again, appreciate your work.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much. I also believe that racism is born out of ignorance. The only possible solution to this is grabbing the issue at its roots and burning them out.
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