Tottenham Hotspur and England full back Danny Rose was all over the news yesterday, and that’s due to two distinctive narratives. The first story to make global headlines centered around the England/Spurs back urging his family not to travel to Russia for the World Cup next week, due to concerns that they could be subjected to extreme racial prejudice.
The second major story that broke on Wednesday related to his being diagnosed with clinical depression. (We covered that in detail in our first article, linked here)
Rose warned his family about the current political climate in Russia, and how it could result in some ugliness that would best be avoided. He added that he himself is now numb to the abuse, due to his being subjected to it so much.
Via the London Evening Standard
“I’m not worried for myself,” Rose told Standard Sport ahead of his first World Cup.
“But I’ve told my family I don’t want them going out there because of racism and anything else that may happen. I don’t want to be worrying when I’m trying to prepare for games for my family’s safety. If anything happens to me, it wouldn’t affect me like it would if my family had been abused. I’m fine with whatever may or may not happen, and I like to think I’ll be able to deal with it in the right way. “
He even said that Three Lions could walk out on a game if incidents of racial abuse become egregious enough.
“We had a team meeting last week and asked, ‘What if it happens [in Russia]? What would we do?’ We said we have to back each other. We said, ‘What if somebody doesn’t want the attention? Do we take over?’
Danny Rose wasn’t shy about ripping FIFA hypocrisy over their punitive measures either. He feels the problem of racial abuse has been exacerbated by the governing body’s inability to police it, and their inconsistency in how they administer discipline.
FIFA recently fined the Russia football union £22,000 for racist chanting aimed at French players when the two countries squared off three months ago. Meanwhile the English Football Association got hit by a £16,000 fine from FIFA over a Three Lions U20 player’s drinking of a non-sponsored energy drink during last year’s World Cup.
“A £22,000 fine is disgusting. What do they [Fifa] expect? I don’t want to sound arrogant but if I had been fined £22,000 – without sounding big-headed – it wouldn’t make a difference,” Danny Rose said.
“A country being fined £22,000 is just laughable.”
England face Costa Rica in their final World Cup warm-up game tonight. They will then open up their 2018 World Cup campaign in 11 days, when they take on Tunisia in group stage play.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
Follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Sound Cloud, LinkedIn and YouTube.