Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Bentancur & Son: Racism against East and South East asian players is on the rise

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“To be brutally honest, we run into these kind of things every week,” says London-based Premier League video content creator Kevin Yuan.

It’s not only the high profile players facing racist abuse – fans have told BBC Sport about their experiences following football.

Yuan was racially abused alongside a female colleague outside Wembley Stadium by Real Madrid supporters after the Champions League final in June.

Yuan creates football content for the Chinese media market and was filming with celebrating Madrid fans who were – unknown to him – singing a racially offensive chant in Spanish about Chinese women, aimed at his colleague.

“I asked one fan what did that chant mean? And he said, that’s it’s a Real Madrid chant, that we are champions,” he said.

“The next day we were told by our friends in Spain that this was actually a very racist song. We found it incredibly offensive.”

Yuan revealed he has faced similar incidents filming at English clubs.

“It feels like part of our jobs [to take the abuse],” he said. “We film at different stadiums before and after the game and it seems to happen literally every week.

“I don’t know if it is because of the way I look or speak.

“I am in a chat group with Chinese supporters of Manchester United and we have a saying that you will be extremely lucky to avoid a racist incident at least once during a season.

“It happens no matter which team you support. I came to the UK in 2008 and have been going to games since then – but I feel like a foreigner, like I don’t fit in. I would hope people can understand how unsettling it is and put themselves in my shoes.”

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