Football in a nutshell: Moody-Mackay ‘text-gate’ sums up everything that’s wrong with our game

The word ‘banter’ gets flipped around a lot these days. There are scenarios in which it is appropriate: it would be an apt way to describe hilarious drunken mishaps on a night out, for instance, or mickey-taking in the dressing room, but for the League Managers Association (LMA) to use it so flippantly to describe the disgusting conversations that were recently discovered between Malky Mackay and Iain Moody is unforgivable, and it says a lot about the culture surrounding the game we all know and love.

I would say that 95% of English football fans would condemn what was said in those messages as totally unacceptable in today’s society. After all, if you had uttered such abhorrent phrases in any street in Britain, I’d like to think that you would be arrested before you could say ‘friendly banter’. So why is it, then, that football continues to allow such attitudes and dismiss them so lightly? 

The fact is that, whatever you may hear, football is several decades behind the times when it comes to issues such as racism, anti-semitism, sexism and homophobia. The ‘Kick It Out’ campaign is welcomed and will continue to build bridges but as it stands, there is more discrimination in football than in virtually any other walk of life. You won’t hear about it unless it involves a high-profile figure (a la Suarez, Terry, and now Mackay), because the big-wigs at the top of the English game sweep it all under the carpet, but you can be sure that it is there at every Football League ground in the country, be it in the form of homophobic chants, bananas thrown (which happens more than you hear about) or anti-Semitic violence before and after games. But more worryingly, discrimination is prevalent among the authorities. Greg Dyke himself said recently that the FA is overwhelmingly white and male, and in today's 21st century 'multicultural' society, there is not a single black manager in English football. Coincidence? I think not.

Admittedly, English football is not as bad as some other countries such as Italy and Russia in terms of levels of institutionalised discrimination, where racism is almost accepted at football stadia. It must also be said that it is only a small minority who are poisoning English football with prehistoric attitudes. However, this minority is tarnishing football’s reputation, or as the FA always like to put it, ‘bringing the game into disrepute’, and they must be punished accordingly. 

I for one will be very disappointed if the Football Association doesn’t come down on Mackay, Moody and more importantly the LMA like a ton of bricks and issue the heaviest punishment they have the power to sanction. A statement of intent must be made; it must be made clear to these dinosaurs that discrimination will not be tolerated in football. Moreover, they must prove that such issues are not swept under the carpet, that English football does welcome all cultures, that they are serious about improving the culture surrounding football, and that they will not overlook any breach of conduct, regardless of who the culprit is. If Mackay, Moody and Richard Bevan (head of the LMA) are not banned from the game for a very long time, then serious questions will have to be asked about the integrity at the top of English football.