John Barnes on Jadon Sancho’s racism admission: ‘Give up football, go into the real world and see what real discrimination is about’
John Barnes has told Jadon Sancho to ‘go into the real world and see what real discrimination is about’ after the England star admitted seeing players racially abused makes him question why he plays football.
The 55-year-old has suggested footballers, due to their privilege and wealth, don’t know what real racism and discrimination is.
Barnes joined talkSPORT on Tuesday and spoke passionately about the many cases of footballers suffering abuse from supporters and online since the start of the season.
Former Manchester United striker Romelu Lukaku is the latest player to be targeted, with Cagliari fans making monkey noises at the Belgian as he scored a match-winning goal for new club Inter Milan over the weekend.
Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Tammy Abraham and Kurt Zouma are among the other players who have been recently abused by online trolls, which has reopened the debate on how to better combat racism in football.
But Barnes says it will always be a problem for the game as long as it is present in society and insists clubs, governing bodies and authorities have ‘got it the wrong way around’ in their fight against it.
And he has called for footballers to use their voices to fight the issue of racism and discrimination in wider society, not just in their own sport.
“We have to get it out of society before we can get it out of the game,” Barnes said on Tuesday’s Sports Breakfast.
“It’s impossible to get it out of the game as long as it exists in all walks of society.
“As with homophobia and sexism, you can’t target any one industry, you can’t target Hollywood with Harvey Weinstein and say, ‘well if he goes to prison there’s got to be no more sexism’.
“It’s ridiculous. We’re doing this the wrong way round!
“These incidents will keep on happening until we get rid of racism in society. It exists in all walks of society, in which football is just one.”
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Barnes also issued his response to Borussia Dortmund winger Sancho, who has said players will start falling out of love with football if it racial abuse continues.
He added: “You love football because of the game, not because of some idiot who is going to shout at your from across the street.
“If Jadon is going to fall out of love with football, let him give up football and let him go into the real world as a young black man without an education and without being able to play football, then he’ll see what it’s really like to be a black person who is racially abused.
“As much as footballers want to talk about how terrible it is for them, look at what’s happening in the black community of kids without an education and who haven’t got jobs.
“If he thinks that’s bad [the abuse of footballers], let him go into the real world and see what real discrimination is about.
“We’re now coming full circle, we’re trying to get something to change so lets get these black superstar footballers to tell us what we should do and tell us how terrible it is for them.
“What they should do is use their voice to talk about discrimination where it really hurts people in the inner cities with kids who can’t get jobs or opportunities.
“He’s signed a nice new contract, is he willing to give that contract up because he’s falling out of love with football? I don’t think he is.
“Let's not get it blown out of proportion.”