The Euro 2024 football tournament kicks off on Friday, with Scotland in action against hosts Germany. But the real sporting spectacle has already begun, with various British tabloids being labelled as ‘racist’ for daring to run back-page photographs of the black England and Arsenal FC forward Bukayo Saka, following England’s shock 1-0 defeat to lowly Iceland in a friendly warm-up match at Wembley last week. As England’s performance was rather dull, some bored fans threw paper aeroplanes onto the pitch, one of which Saka himself picked up and threw in despair after the result, making for a good picture to lead with on the sports pages of newspapers like the Sun and Daily Star:
How terribly racist! Well, apart from the fact that the largest image on the back-page of the Daily Star is in fact of a demonstrably white footballer, centre-back John Stones, and that the Sun also features a large image of the equally Aryan England manager Gareth Southgate. Still, one headline says ‘BLACK ICE’, which cannot possibly be merely a traditional tabloid pun on England’s opponents, but a sinister dog-whistle attempt to pin all blame for the loss onto the shoulders of Scapegoat Saka, who is clearly being “set up to be the [black-]face of defeat”. This must be so, as none other than BBC pundit Ian Wright, a black former England and Arsenal FC forward himself, says so:
To read the rest of this article, you need to donate at least £5/month or £50/year to the Daily Sceptic, then create an account on this website. The easiest way to create an account after you’ve made a donation is to click on the ‘Log In’ button on the main menu bar, click ‘Register’ underneath the sign-in box, then create an account, making sure you enter the same email address as the one you used when making a donation. Once you’re logged in, you can then read all our paywalled content, including this article. Being a donor will also entitle you to comment below the line, discuss articles with our contributors and editors in a members-only Discord forum and access the premium content in the Sceptic, our weekly podcast. A one-off donation of at least £5 will also entitle you to the same benefits for one month. You can donate here.
There are more details about how to create an account, and a number of things you can try if you’re already a donor – and have an account – but cannot access the above perks on our Premium page.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.