Of course it is - everybody knows that!
[538, via Fark] - Soccer Commentary Is Full Of Coded Racism
A new study shows players with darker skin are often reduced to physical attributes, while players with lighter skin are praised for mental qualities.
A new paper published by Danish sports data company RunRepeat and backed by the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) makes it clear that soccer commentary in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada has a racism problem.
Researchers from RunRepeat sampled 80 games from the 2019-20 seasons of the English Premier League, French Ligue 1, Italian Serie A and Spanish La Liga — broadcast across seven different networks1 — and analyzed more than 2,000 statements made by commentators about 643 unique players. The study included 1,361 comments about players with lighter skin and 713 comments about players with darker skin.2 The study found that, weighting for the different number of comments made about each group, players with lighter skin were praised more frequently for their intelligence (62.6 percent of the comments coded as positive were about players with lighter skin), work ethic (60.4 percent) and overall quality (62.8 percent), while 63.3 percent of criticism about a player’s intelligence was aimed at players with darker skin, along with 67.6 percent of criticism about a player’s quality.
The study also found that players with darker skin were often reduced to racist tropes about their speed and strength, which is often coded by commentators as "pace and power." |