England boss Gareth Southgate, “Still plenty of work to be done” to tackle racism in football

England manager Gareth Southgate admits “there is still work to be done” to stamp out racism in football, but believes the sport is moving in the right direction.

The 46-year-old, who spoke exclusively to Shoot! at Show Racism the Red Card’s 2017 National School Competition Awards Ceremony at Leicester City’s King Power Stadium on Wednesday, was inspired by the prize-winning work on display from the attending schoolchildren.

In a week marred by Pescara’s Sulley Muntari’s suspension for protesting against racist abuse in Serie A, the Three Lions boss was taken back by the charity’s anti-racism education programme and backs football to continue being a major vehicle in fighting discrimination at all levels in the beautiful game.

“Nobody is born with an ounce of prejudice in their body,” Southgate told Shoot!, “So it is something that happens because of the influence of adults usually.

“So to see the purity of what was being spoken about and what was drawn was really heart-warming.

“The messages are really important and I think they came through powerfully.

“If I think of how far we have changed, in my period of time in professional football, we have definitely come along way.

“Equally there is still racism that is apparent, and not just with chanting from supporters. So there is still work to be done.”

Photo: Daniel Church (Credit).

In addition to Southgate’s guest of honour appearance; players from Leicester City Ladies (Above) were in attendance, as well as TV personality Manish Bhasin and several former professional players, such as Luther Blissett and Paul Davis.

The England manager presented all of SRTRC’s competition winners with prizes in recognition of their work to create powerful anti-racism messages, with gifts ranging from Amazon Kindles, England football shirts, tickets to the 2017 FA Women’s Cup final and the 2017 Shoot! Annual.

Open to young people of all ages, the free-to-enter competition encourages participants to produce anti-racism themed artwork in any medium – creative writing (including poetry), short stories, newspaper articles, plus film and music packages.

Now in its 21st year, supporter Southgate had nothing but praise for Show Racism the Red Card, but says more can be done to help this charity, and ultimately stamp out racism in sport, in general.

“I think some of the work changes in direction, because people don’t necessarily think about religious biases and things like that,” Southgate added.

“That would be a concern as we move forward.

Photo: Daniel Church (Credit).

“When I started, the focus was all around integration of black players into teams and how crowds treated them. That now thankfully is disappearing and people are used to every club having black players and being a huge part of our game.

“But there are other areas now that people don’t think about, religion and other nationalities that come to play here.

“So the messages are as important, but maybe in slightly different areas now.”