It should have been a simple interview. But when Tottenham Hotspur’s Rodrigo Bentancur was asked to show teammate, Son Heung-Min’s shirt on Uruguayan TV, his response – “Sonny’s? It could be Sonny’s cousin too as they all look the same” – sparked outrage and a seven-game ban for racist language.
This incident, unfortunately, isn’t isolated. Anti-racism charity Kick It Out (KIO) reports a worrying trend:
- More abuse: “Player-targeted” racist abuse (in stadiums and online) rose from 277 cases in 2022-23 to 395 in 2023-24.
- East and South East Asians disproportionately targeted: 55% of last season’s reported abuse was aimed at players of East Asian heritage.
- A small group bears the brunt: Over the last five seasons, 35% of all racist abuse reported to KIO was directed at just seven East and South East Asian players.
“We are getting a lot of reports about this type of racism,” says KIO chief executive Samuel Okafor. “It’s fans sending us a clear message they are not willing to tolerate discrimination and it’s a message that football needs to listen to.”
The most high-profile East and South East Asian players in the Premier League, including Son Heung-min and Hwang Hee-chan, have been subjected to repeated racist abuse. Son, in particular, has faced numerous incidents since joining the league in 2015.
But it’s not just the players who are targeted. Fans have also shared their experiences of racial abuse. Kevin Yuan, a Premier League video content creator, told BBC Sport: “To be brutally honest, we run into these kind of things every week.” Yuan described being racially abused alongside a female colleague by Real Madrid supporters after the Champions League final in June. “It feels like part of our jobs [to take the abuse],” he said.
Maxwell Min of the Frank Soo Foundation points to a possible reason for this rise in racism: “There may be a simple fact that it is only in recent years that East and South East Asians have begun playing in our stadiums at the highest level… There are also new fans in the stadium and there is this assumption that these fans have a more shallow interest in the sport… often seeing them characterized as ‘tourists’.”
The Frank Soo Foundation also emphasized the need for education and consultation to address the issue of racism against East and South East Asians in football.
In their statement responding to the Bentancur incident, they said: “What comes to our attention the most is the need from football to recognise that the racial slurs made are unacceptable and are not just offensive to the target, but offensive to the wider East and South East Asian (ESEA) communities. More education for players, staff, fans and also the media is required to treat racist remarks regularly directed towards people from ESEA communities with the same seriousness as other forms of racism.”
