Vincent Kompany is sticking up for his Belgian teammate after Romelu Lukaku was racially abused this weekend in Italy.
New Inter Milan striker Lukaku was subject to monkey chants, and he was understandably angered by them.
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The shocking answer from Inter fans was that (paraphrasing here) he shouldn’t consider the chants racist because they are just aimed to rile people up.
Kompany is now player-manager at Anderlecht, and the ex-Manchester City star says we shouldn’t expect major changes in how racism is eradicated from football until there are more people in positions of power who’ve had to deal with racism in their lives.“You are dealing with a crowd of people and decision-makers who are telling him how he should think and feel about this when you have no decision-makers who are remotely in touch with what he has experienced in his life.
“That’s the real issue, if you go through the boards at UEFA or FIFA, the Italian League or the English League there is a real lack of diversity. If you don’t have diversity in places of power like boardrooms then you can’t have the right decisions in terms of sanctions - it’s a simple as that.”
There’s a lot to that. Sure, academically anyone can appreciate the painful effects of racism, but it’s impossible to truly grasp it without having a representative voice in places of power.
Kompany has long been one of the wiser voices in world football. Frankly, he seems like a future UEFA or FIFA board member.
