Graeme Souness
Former Liverpool player and manager Graeme Souness has said he has witnessed racist remarks in the past and feels angry he failed to challenge it. Souness was speaking on Sky Sports following Manchester City’s 5-0 win over Burnley. At the start of the match as the players joined together to take a knee in a show of support and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, a plane flew over the stadium with a banner which read ‘White Lives Matter Burnley’.
Graeme Souness said “I’m a man in my sixties, and for the very first time in my life I’m questioning myself. Only twice in my life, in the football world, and that’s the world I know, was I confronted with racist remarks. And I didn’t challenge them, and I’m angry with myself now, I brushed it off at the time. It wasn’t in the dressing room, it was made by directors at football clubs and I didn’t challenge them at that time. I think what’s happened in the last few weeks with Black Lives Matter is that we’ll all question ourselves now, if somebody says something racist, we’ll say something. I’m a bit like Joe Hart, I worry about saying the right things, I hear people saying all the time, ‘things have got to change’. We need to know what we can do, other than question people who may say something racist in front of us, other than that, how can we improve the situation? What can a man of 60-plus do to be more part of the cause? And I think right across generations people are saying that. As a white man I have never lived in black skin obviously and I have not witnessed the prejudices.”
