Does it matter where he comes from?

Skoorb

Skoorb

Alert Team
I heard the media last night reporting that Kagawa's hat trick for the rags was "the first in the Premier League by an Asian player". Now this struck me as very odd as my immediate thought was what difference does it make where he comes from? The FA and PL have been fighting a campaign for years against racism in football based on the message that it is unacceptable to highlight or differentiate between players based on their race. Everyone should be treated the same whether they hail from Weston-Super-Mare, Kinshasa, Mumbai or Marseilles etc. And yet the message I took from this description was that it made a point of saying "an Asian player has scored three goals". Fair play to the guy well done for scoring three goals in a top league, never a task taken lightly. But rag or not, it makes no difference to me where he comes from and I was just not comfortable with the reference to his race in relation to his footballing achievement. Refer to him as Japanese or whatever nationality he is (same way Dzeko is referred to as Bosnian etc) but keep the racial description out of it. Seems somewhat hypocritical.
 
Take your point, Skoorb. I think there are different perceptions about the term "Asian" as well....most British people will think India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka, and most of those in North America will think China/Korea/Japan/Vietnam when they hear it.

I think the media tag it as they do because of the relative rarity of players from that continent playing in major leagues, and, prehaps a small sense of "My God, do they play football there?"
It will become more pronounced when a British Asian player is capped at senior level by one of the home nations in football or rugby, rather than, for example, cricket.
 
Well, the commentary of the Spurs-Arsenal match sounded like a UN meeting. They listed a nationality in front of every player before talking about the game. Seemed quite strange.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.