The beautiful game is a mirror that reflects society. We might not like what we see

3 months ago 5

Opinion

November 19, 2025 — 7.30pm

As the world’s most popular sport, soccer is a unique reflection of society.

The beautiful game is a mirror; it shows us who we are, revealing not just our passions, but the broader forces shaping them: globalisation, nationalism, identity, culture and prejudice.

We don’t always like what we see.

Mary Fowler during her time at French club Montpellier.

Racism is a problem in society. For all the progress it feels we have made, for all the awareness raised, it might actually be getting worse.

So, as long as soccer is played by humans, it will be a problem in soccer.

Periodically, we get reminders of what it looks like; usually through screenshots of athletes’ social media inboxes, where people vomit the sort of hatred they wouldn’t dare say to their faces. These screenshots get posted publicly in the hope that something will change, and where possible, clubs try to identify the perpetrators and ban them. Nothing much changes, however.

In August, a man was arrested for sending racist abuse to England defender Jess Carter during the UEFA Women’s Euros. A month later, teammate Jess Naz said she’d received the same treatment, and that she was hopeful that by airing it, such behaviour would be discouraged. But it keeps happening.

England’s Jess Carter has been the target of racial abise.

The English national team and Naz’s club, Tottenham Hotspur, subsequently announced they would no longer be taking a knee – to protest against racial injustice – before matches, having reached the conclusion that such symbolic moves were ultimately pointless. So that didn’t work, either.

Sometimes, we hear it and see it with our own ears and eyes in large crowds at stadiums, where individuals blend into masses and thus escape scrutiny for words and actions that, again, they wouldn’t say or do on their lonesome.

Sometimes, it’s a little more pervasive.

In her book, Bloom, Matildas star Mary Fowler does not use the words “racism” or “racist” even once. She chooses her language carefully. Clearly, though, this is the topic on her mind as she writes about her departure from French club Montpellier, and the time she and a black teammate were given bananas in lieu of flowers by their colleagues.

The banana, of course, was corruptly co-opted as a symbol of racist abuse a long time ago. They’ve been thrown onto sporting arenas, in Australia and abroad, for many years, the implication being that the recipient is a monkey, or similar, and therefore somehow less than human. It’s possible that whoever gave Fowler the bananas wasn’t trying to make this connection, but as Fowler says, it’s difficult to reach any other conclusion.

Whose problem is this to solve? Society has tried and failed. Sport has tried and failed. Is there a particular slogan, armband, campaign, policy or social media tile that will crack the case, once and for all? No.

The fight against racism feels, increasingly, like a hopeless war of attrition, an impossible battle that we kind of have to fight anyway, because admitting defeat would be even worse.

So, credit to Fowler. She’s thought long and hard about these issues, and it’s a good thing that she’s prepared to speak openly about them. That’s brave.

Her modest intentions, though, are worth noting: she seeks to help others who happen to find themselves in similar positions, as opposed to hoping that anything will be “fixed” in other people.

Nothing will probably change. But what else do you do?