Listen to footballers: no amount of money can protect from the devastating effects of racism

At the Professional Footballers’ Association Awards, I was astonished by the terrible stories of players at all levels of the game. Whether inflicted on a sink estate or inside a national sports arena, racism is equally destructive

Mixing with racism victims is harrowing at the best of times; even when they are multimillionaires wearing black ties and designer watches it is no less disturbing. The growing bigotry of modern Europe hit me hard when I attended last weekend’s Professional Footballers’ Association Awards, one of the most glamorous events of the sporting calendar.

Astonishing as it might sound, every single one of the extremely well-remunerated, allegedly-cosseted sportspeople I spoke to had been targeted in one way or the other, from Virgil van Dijk – the Players’ Player of the Year, who has a Dutch father and Surinamese mother – to aspiring ethnic and religious minority players currently in the lower leagues.

Raheem Sterling, who won the Young Player of the Year title, had pledged to “bring awareness” to a developing problem that still sees players like him insulted because of the colour of their skin. That intervention followed Sadio Mané, the brilliant Senegalese forward, who plays alongside Van Dijk at Liverpool, being forced to send a message of support to his international teammate Kalidou Koulibaly after he was racially abused during an Italian league game. With a calm articulacy, Mané wrote on social media: “I am bitter not to say bruised and dismayed by what you have experienced.” Citing “abominable acts”, he highlighted an evil in the game that shows little sign of disappearing.

Mercedes and BMW limousines delivered guests to the five-star Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane for the PFA Awards. This is the reality in a game where players can now command salaries of more than a quarter-of-a-million pounds a week and are treated like princes. Yet as I listened to the players’ private asides, the sense of worthlessness suffered by those condemned to lives of humiliation was palpable.

Money does not protect from the effects of abuse. Whether inflicted on a sink estate or inside state-of-the-art sports arenas, racism is equally destructive.

There is no doubt that the demographic of fans inside Europe’s premier sports stadiums has changed. Spiralling ticket prices and complex booking systems previously associated with theatres and concert halls ensure that crowds are increasingly middle-class. The kind of uneducated thugs who used to bait black players from crumbling terraces three decades ago are few and far between – yet their legacy lives on.

“We’re racist, and that’s the way we like it,” chanted Chelsea fans during a trip to Paris in 2015, before arrests were made for racist violence against a black man on the French capital’s Metro system. A video of the disgraceful incident led to four criminal convictions, but that did not stop other supporters of the London club returning for a game against Paris Saint-Germain a year later and shouting “Sieg Heil”, while making Nazi salutes.

Much of the abuse around football now relates to religious minorities, and especially Muslims. Mohamed Salah, last year’s PFA Players’ Player of the season and another Liverpool superstar, was called a “bomber” by Chelsea fans singing offensive songs in Prague a few weeks ago. Their deceit – one shared by plenty of other hatemongers – was that collective guilt should be spread to anybody who happens to share the same faith as murderous criminals.

As with other clubs caught up in race scandals, Chelsea has moved to ban its racists for life, but evidently there is still plenty of work to be done. Kick It Out, the anti-discrimination organisation which works with the PFA and was highly praised by its chief executive, Gordon Taylor, at the awards, described an increase in racist incidents as nothing less than a “crisis”. Campaigner Troy Townsend believes action needs to be tougher and faster. Referring to the bile directed at Sterling, Townsend said the “game acts way too slowly” and it was no good waiting “for Raheem to send a message on Instagram to then react and say, ‘We’re looking into this’”.

The crisis has certainly gone far beyond that. Almost unimaginable amounts of money bring plenty of rewards, but shielding footballers from venal racism is not one of them.