Is Football A Safe Space?
Content warning: discussion of rape and sexual content below.
This last week has been a difficult one for a lot of football supporters. The sport is supposed to be for anyone - the beautiful game, the game of the people - but the last week showed that really isn’t the case.
Sport is never quite an escape from reality. For example, the players taking the knee before a game is meant to bring attention to the unfortunate realities of racism in the world.
That kind of message from the players is intended to make supporters uncomfortable. It is supposed to make people question themselves, their environment and their interactions with society.
It is a welcome part of the sport and it is great to see the players get involved. The unity that is shown between them is powerful. And the kneeling isn’t the only example of this, obviously.
However, there will now be supporters questioning themselves for all the wrong reasons.
Following the suspension of Benjamin Mendy over allegations of rape and sexual assault dating back as far as last year, many wondered how much Manchester City knew about this.
“Instead, Mendy continued to play for City over a nine-month period in which he made 18 appearances,” wrote Daniel Taylor in The Athletic.
“He scored a couple of goals. He was championed by the club’s website. He collected his Premier League winner’s medal and played in the Community Shield against Leicester City at Wembley last month.”
It is good that someone in Taylor’s position is asking these questions. There are countless people out there who support Man City, or watch the Premier League, who were negatively impacted by a story like this breaking.
Because for a club to knowingly continue playing someone who is being investigated for such crimes leaves a very sour taste.
Taylor even points out the counterexample of Everton, who suspended one of their players before the season began for criminal charges being thrown against him.
Everton were swift and clear in their decision making, and there is no indication there was any hesitation to do otherwise. Meanwhile, Mendy even played as recently as the opening game of this season against Tottenham Hotspur.
Thankfully, I have no first hand experience of something of this nature, but you don’t have to search very long to find someone who does. And for many victims, this can be a very difficult topic to see spoken about.
The news was distressing, and potentially triggering, for a lot of people.
Obviously, we cannot escape the reality that these things unfortunately happen. But the way the sport handles these situations has been proven to be unacceptable. This week it was Man City, but next week it could be your club.
And it is not just clubs and players who are involved in this.
In fact, despite Taylor writing that necessary piece on The Athletic, he also wrote last week on the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer story.
“There is still the clear possibility of Ronaldo’s career getting its fairytale ending, just as he would always have expected. His mission is to restore United to the summit of English football and, if everything goes according to plan, what a way to close his career as a genuine great,” wrote Taylor on August 28.
Taylor, of course, wasn’t alone in the way he wrote about this transfer. In theory, he’s right. It should be a fairytale ending for such a career. Henry Winter wrote on Twitter that it is “romantic” and “thrilling” that Ronaldo is coming back to Manchester United.
But, unfortunately that really isn’t the story. This is such uncomfortable language.
Kathryn Mayorga claims that the Portuguese player raped her in a hotel room in Las Vegas in 2009.
It is likely this story wasn’t written about in relation to his transfer from Juventus to Man United due to very strict libel laws in the UK - i.e. there is no point in risking a lawsuit by mentioning it due to it not being “relevant” to the transfer story.
But, it is still incredibly disheartening that some journalists and pundits are glossing over it completely. It is one thing to discuss his quality as a player, but to describe him so heroically while ignoring Mayorga’s accusation is negligent.
Their use of language is a choice.
These white men are in such a privileged position of power when it comes to the narrative surrounding this story. They set the agenda. Instead of questioning Man United, like with Man City, they are joining in on the celebration.
How is that supposed to make a victim of sexual assault and/or rape feel? There are Man United fans and neutral viewers out there who are victims of these types of crimes.
I can’t put words in those people’s mouths, but I couldn’t blame them for feeling lost, or alone or isolated or disenfranchised from the game.
Because the likes of Winter and Taylor have publicly shown that they care more about the player, and how good he is on the pitch, than they care about the far more important off-pitch matters.
This deserves to be called out.
To those, too, who have used these types of stories only as point-scoring on social media, you should also be ashamed. This is far more important that a tribal need to gloat. To do that is to show you don’t really care about the problem and could just as easily turn a blind eye when it suits.
The responses, too, of Guardiola and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer are also tremendously disappointing and hurtful.
The Man City manager defended Mendy last January for breaking covid restrictions. But it was in January that the alleged sexual assault took place, and the player had been charged the previous November.
"He's part of the group, he's one of the good guys. It must be love in our group. He's a special guy for all of us, he has an incredible heart,” said Guardiola.
"I would like to see how many people judge him if they have the good intentions he has.”
Solskjaer, too, was smiling with glee over the prospect of signing Ronaldo.
This isn’t how we make football a safe and welcoming space for fans from all backgrounds. This is how we alienate people, in particular women.
This has been a bleak week for football. Fans are being left out in such an inconsiderate manner that is easily reversed. So much more can be done to highlight this problem instead of simply ignoring it completely.
This sport is supposed to be about joy, or even despair. It shouldn’t isolate people like this. That’s not what the game is about.
Editor’s Note: It should be said that The Athletic did address the accusation against Ronaldo since I first wrote this, but I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere else in the agenda-setting media, nor from the club.
Even so, the highlighting of Taylor still goes to show the difference in language and how harmful it can be to survivors of sexual violence.