Show Racism the Red Card UK call to action to professional football clubs

29 August 2020

Our partner Show Racism the Red Card UK calls professional Football Clubs in England, Scotland and Wales to support their anti-racism education programme. The charity aims to use the momentum of anti-racism movement to advocate for the importance of education to promote tolerance and inclusion.  

Ged Grebby, Chief Executive of Show Racism the Red Card, said: 
“It has been fantastic to see top sports men and women support the BLM movement and “Take a Knee”. Show Racism the Red Card believe these actions are important to highlight the need for anti-racism. The natural progression is to take action by helping with education programmes like ours, which increase understanding of racism and prejudice for a better future. That’s why we’re calling on footballers to join us.”  

The letter sent to 92 professional clubs in England and Wales and 42 professional clubs in Scotland:  

As you are aware, one of SRtRC’s most effective – and popular – ways of engaging with young people / teachers is through our educational events with football clubs, which we have held with clubs from across all 4 divisions for many years. 

I am sure you will agree the forthcoming season will be challenging in many different ways, not least that sadly, it seems unlikely that schools will be able to visit Stadiums any time soon.  

However, we propose to take some of the magic of the club events direct to the schools themselves via a Q and A with players & young people via Zoom.  

As I am sure you are aware 2020 has been a year of great change, one of these changes is the highlighted public desire for anti-racism action.  

Football is a powerful vehicle to drive this change forward. The players’ active support for the Black Lives Matter message by ‘taking the knee’ showed a great example of the unified desire for change.  

The work we do with football clubs is a solid way of transforming this message into action by helping educate and make young people in your area aware of what these actions look like in real life. It would be great to work together and solidify this message of unity and change. 

I hope that we will be able to arrange a ‘virtual’ event with the club over the coming weeks/months of the 2020-2021 season and look forward to discussing with you in more detail soon. 

All the best, 

Ged Grebby