‘Intelligent’ or ‘Strong’: Study Finds Bias in Soccer Broadcasts
The P.F.A. study examined more than 2,000 remarks from commentators, concerning 643 players and spread across 80 games — in the top divisions of Italy, Spain, England and France — from the current season.
The study is not the first of its kind. The academics James Rada and Tim Wulfemeyer analyzed racial descriptors in a 2005 paper that looked at televised college sports in the United States.
“Portraying African Americans as naturally athletic or endowed with God-given athleticism exacerbates the stereotype,” they wrote, “by creating the impression of a lazy athlete, one who does not have to work at his craft.”
The P.F.A. study found that when analyzing in-game events — like the accuracy of a shot or a pass — commentators spread their praise and criticism evenly between white and nonwhite players: there was no bias, it concluded, when assessing factual events.
Bias, though, seeped through when discussing the players in more general terms. As Rada and Wulfmeyer found, the “brain versus brawn” stereotype held, even when discussing elite soccer in 2020. White players were praised and black players criticized more frequently for their quality and ability to adapt to different roles, and black players were singled out for their physical strengths, rather than their mental ones.
Players have noticed. Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling, among others, has spoken of the need to ensure greater representation of black players in managerial and executive positions. But they also are aware of how they are talked about during broadcasts.
“It is never about my skill when I am compared to other strikers,” Lukaku said in an interview with The New York Times last year. “My one-on-one dribbling is good. I can do a step-over. I can beat a player. I remember one comment from a journalist that United should not sign Lukaku because he is not an ‘intelligent’ footballer.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/sports/soccer/soccer-racism-broadcasting.html