Barnes In Israel To Fight Racism
Former Liverpool star and England International John Barnes was in Israel earlier this week as Israeli's look to deal with racism in the game.
Barnes was leading an English FA delegation who met their Israeli counterparts to discuss the challenges facing Israeli clubs in combating racism in football.
The initiative, led by New Israel Fund UK saw Barnes talk about his experiences of racism in England. He told TJ: “It’s very difficult to compare the situation of both countries but it’s important for the IFA to embark on their journey of kicking racism out of football, to look at the English model and adapt it to suit the needs of Israel, which are different – economically, socially and religiously.
“I know about the Israeli-Arab conflict but not how it has impacted on football. But in any game I’ve always thought football is about conflict so therefore fans are naturally going to hate the opposition fans. So when you have wider issues like the cultural issues out here it magnifies it even more.
“The FA told me they were launching ‘Kick It Out’ and I was delighted to come along. I’m proud to be part of anything to combat racism around the world and I’m happy to be in Israel”.
The FA’s Simon Johnson was also present and told TJ: “We’re not here to tell the Israelis what to do with particular issues but to offer our support, help and friendship. We are coming simply for the purpose of saying here is the problem we had in England 15 years ago and here are some of the steps we took to address this problem.
“You can’t look at the English model and say ‘right we’re going to do this and its going to work here, and we can’t advice how to do that because we don’t know the logistics of life here, whereas the people who live here do.
“There are obviously much wider and deeper issues here concerning society here in Israel than there are in England. We’re not saying our problems are the same but this is what we did to deal with them and the Israelis can learn from our experiences.
“We have a great friendship and relationship with the Israeli FA. We’ve never supported an association as we have with this particular campaign."
