Danny Rose has revealed he cannot wait to walk away from football because he is so disgusted by the racism that blights the game – and the response of the authorities to it.
The Tottenham left back was racially abused on England duty last week during the 5-1 Euro 2020 qualifying win against Montenegro in Podgorica. The 28-year-old was subjected to monkey chants from the stands in the first half, and he heard them even more loudly at the end of the game after he was booked for a foul. Rose's teammates Raheem Sterling and Callum Hudson-Odoi also had racist abuse directed at them.
It was not the first time that Rose had suffered in this way. In October 2012, when playing for England under-21s in Serbia, his every touch was greeted by monkey chants. He was also hit by stones when he went to get the ball for a throw-in.
“I’ve had enough,” Rose said. “At the minute, how I programme myself is that I just think: ‘I’ve got five or six more years left in football and I just can’t wait to see the back of it.’ Seeing how things are done in the game at the minute…It’s just whatever, isn’t it? I just want to get out of it.
“That’s how I feel. I feel I’ve got five or six more years left and I just want to enjoy football as much as I can. There is so much politics and whatever in football, and I just can’t wait to see the back of it to be honest.”
Rose expressed dismay at how some incidents are dealt with harshly but national associations can be let off with what amounts to a slap on the wrist when it comes to racist behaviour. To illustrate his point he brought up how Mauricio Pochettino was given a two-match touchline ban after the Tottenham manager confronted the referee Mike Dean at the end of the 2-1 defeat at Burnley in February.
There was widespread criticism of Uefa in 2012 when the governing body ordered Serbia to play their next under-21s fixture behind closed doors and fined them €80,000. Other fines have been substantially smaller. Montenegro face a partial closure of their stadium, at least, for their next qualifier if found guilty by a Uefa commission on May 16th.
Night out in London
“Obviously, it is a bit sad [to feel like this] but when countries only get fined what I’d probably spend on a night out in London, what do you expect?” Rose said.
“You see my manager get banned for two games for just being confrontational against Mike Dean. But yet a country can only get fined a little bit of money for being racist. It’s just a bit of a farce at the minute. So that’s where we are at in football, and until there’s a harsh punishment there’s not much else we can expect.”
Pochettino said last Friday that he would not hesitate to call his Spurs players off the field if any were subjected to racist abuse.
“I was over the moon to hear that,” Rose said. “I spoke to Gareth [Southgate, the England manager] after the Montenegro game and he wasn’t aware. I didn’t mention it at half-time so he wasn’t aware of what was happening until he heard it right at the end.
“The manager was a bit upset because he told us it was the first time he’d been involved with something like that, and he said he didn’t know what the right course of action was. He said he was fully behind me if we wanted to walk off. I just wanted to get the three points and get out of there as quickly as possible.”
Rose said he had been forced to prepare himself for the prospect of racial abuse in Montenegro after what he had endured in neighbouring Serbia.
“I sort of prepared myself for what happened. Had we not been winning, the yellow card that I got at the end might have been a red one. I’m fine. I prepared myself for it, we won, and now we just wait for whatever punishment – if any punishment – happens.
Three points
“It happened in Serbia, so I thought there was a possibility it might happen again and it did. I looked up straight away in the first half and I know the exact time it happened. It didn’t affect my game. I’m a big boy now, and I know that three points are obviously not the most important thing when you’re going through something like that, but I just wanted the team to get three points so that we could move on.
“I wasn’t too upset to talk after the game. I just didn’t want the focus to be on me and a small minority of fans doing the chants. I wanted everybody to focus on a great week we’d had with England.”
– Guardian
