Nice video. But for the people who will inevitably take this out of context. Nobody is being called racist. We all have our unconscious biases. I’m black and I do it as well.

Eto'o was an intelligent cunning finisher but that was never mentioned. Henry too!

Never did sit right with me that one of the most talented midfielders of his time, Yaya Toure, played games as a CD in Barcelona. If he had never moved away we would never have know how technically proficient he really was. Great video

It’s not just footballing ability, it’s societal perception. Blacks in football always need to be the perfect human. People now love Saka, because he is the calm, well spoken, not too flashy, and will do interviews with mainstream media. The minute he buys a nice car, or starts being seen with famous people, they’ll remember he is black and say the money has gotten to his head or he’s arrogant. And what makes it worse is when we see blatant racism from mainstream media, people of colour in mainstream media do not stand up for their fellow people or address the situation. That’s why people who are not black think it’s okay for them to judge and criticise every little thing we do that they are not familiar with or what they do not understand. From our hairstyles, dances, music, jewellery, etc. Too many POC just sit around and do or say nothing. This is why people are comfortable with treating our players like that

I think when Naby Keita, a short technical creative midfielder joined Liverpool some pundit called him strong and athletic like a Jordan Henderson

There was a study the English player association did of English TV commentary over 5 years of English games. They notice that white and biracial players were described as being intelligent and skilful 68% more than black players of dark complexion and they found terms such as power, pace and clumsy was used 60% more times, showing a clear bias on how white commentators and white people perceive darker complexion black players. We saw this in the golden boy awards for the past 3 years. The golden boy awards where the voting base is white European journalists leading to white and biracial players topping the list with Pedri, Gavi, Bellingham and Musiala and Wurtz being in the top 5 and Saka who is dark complexion not even being in the top 10 despite being statistically better than all these players and performing better than them in the Euros and World Cup, but white journalists relate more white and half white players,so give them more praise as the study showed this inherent bias in white people.

I don't think these characterisations are entirely misguided. Although the reasons are complicated, certain nations have come to be known for producing a certain profile of player in a disproportionate manner when compared to other nations. Perhaps this is down to the biases of the scouts or purely down to an abundance of certain traits in those nations. For example, Brazil (and some other South American nations) are known for producing flair players. Western European nations like Germany and Spain for producing technical players. Japan and South Korea for producing hardworking and persistent players. And West Africa (Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Nigeria, etc.) in particular for producing strong, robust and high cardio players. Drogba was strong, this is not a mischaracterisation, Lukaku is strong, so too Osimhen, Essien, Adebayor, Yaya, Kouyate, etc. This also tends to apply to West African players born, bred, or assimilated into the diaspora, Vieira, Seedorf, Thuram, Makelele, etc. Furthermore, certain nations have become well-known for disproportionately producing players in certain areas of the pitch. You're more likely to find a West African CDM than a West African GK or CAM. The area of the field also has much to do with the sort of attributes required to excel in the role. The African players mentioned above clearly have other attributes, but if you're looking at a traditional CDM, you don't care much for their vision as for their off the ball dominance. If you are looking at a target man, you care more for their link-up play and ability to hold off defenders, win headers, and of course score goals. But you don't play in the same way when you have Drogba in your team as when you have Aguero, neither do you praise them for the same things. Can you have an African Aguero? Of course. But who are you more likely to find and who will you most likely look for in Africa? Probably another Drogba. The word "Raw" has been used to describe some African players. Yes, for the most part most African players do not receive good technical training in Africa. The infrastructure and technical knowledge is not that great vis-a-vis their European counterparts, and unless they are developed in Europe from an early age, they're probably going to stand out for their natural attributes like pace, power, stamina, etc. Generally speaking, of course. You're still going to get the likes of Jay-Jay Okocha every now and then.

These people dont know ball. You probably think player like Sterling and Kante only good because the strong and agile. No, they are also super smart with movement off the ball. Also as a Man United fan we have the 18 year old black youngster being the smartest player with the ball in our squad and probably one of the best in the league.

Yeah honestly no surprise here. And these kinds of biases have a way to become self-fulling prophecy. Scouts and managers only look for "atheletic" players of colors because they, unconsciously or not, think those are the best qualities from those players. That then ends up re-inforcing the biases and so on. Sport has the potential to transcend prejudices but it will not come for free. We need to be at least aware of them.

While these biases definitely do exist, some of these descriptions of either darker skin or lighter skin players are still true a lot of the time. Darker skin players statistically do tend to rely on their physical attributes such as strength and speed more than lighter skin players, due to many biological and hereditary factors, and that’s by no means a bad thing to make mention of. This shouldn’t make commentators and journalists scared to speak the truth in fear of being called a racist. The way forward to reduce these biases is to state clearly as well when darker skinned players show traits such as intelligence and technique, and when lighter skinned players show traits like strength and speed, of which many do exist.

DW transparency and honesty is making me fall in love with them. Who knows you’re one of the champions of World Peace.❤

British pundits always stood out for me for their love of usisng "naive" for African and black players when they make a mistake

Great video that covers an important topic! I know it's uncomfortable for some people to take a step back and think about but this is how we break down barriers and limits unfairly placed on certain people. As an American fan of premier league I've always thought it was strange how diverse the teams are yet I don't think I've really ever seen a manager of color at any of the top teams. NFL has the same issue even with a league that's primarily black men which shows you how they aren't valued as leaders of an organization and simply people who can run and catch.

great video. I have not noticed this for years. it really changed my way of perception. keep it up.👏

How could this study not include Brazil? These studies are misguided. Then not to include the asian and other south American teams. This is a North American European myopic vision on their 'black' 'white' experience. They continue to conflate black with African. In Africa the term black is nonexistent. Lets compare smaller players with larger players for a topic like this. So how was Baresi or Cannavarro such supreme defenders at 5' 9 and 5' 10? Is it finese brilliance or athleticism. Or how do you explain Ronaldo Phenomenon being that big that fast and that technical compared to messi. We can also consider comparisons in eras Gullit and Maradona CR7 and Messi Bekenbauer and Pele. How much is attributed to skill and how much to strength.

All players have a mixture of attributes but the attribute highlighted is usually the dominant attribute. Drogba is clever but his strength is what the opponents highlight. The same with Gerrard. Zidane is strong. His opponents notice this surprisingly on the pitch but on TV what is noticed is his elegance. Players are usually characterized as strong if opponents have a hard time dealing with them physically. Players like Sergio Ramos ( white) and Lukaku ( black).

Very wonderful research here, I couldn't agree more with the findings

It was all very interesting, until we talked about Victor and then the commentator mentioned "this one guy/this white guy". This one guy actually has a name, it's Robert, and he sleeps with his Champions League cup.

this doesn't apply on Brazillian.. black, white, brown Brazillian = Physique + Finesse ✨👌

As a white Barça fan, I consider Lamine Yamal to be the team's most skilled and very intelligent player who still has room to develop in his physical qualities.

The same thing happens across sports with rugby union, the former All Black captain, and white man, Sean Fitzpatrick talked about Māori and Pacifica players having physical prowess, but lacking tactical awareness, resilience etc. But insisting he wasn't racist as some of his best friends are Māori and Pacifica...

One of the Exhibit A’s is St Maximin and Zaha. They were superstars but swept under the rug.

Wow amazing work, about time some said something!

I always have a problem with the description of players as being a beast because it really only used with black players and this is the legacy of slavery and colonialism were the dehumanising of black was part of the propaganda to justify both immoral acts, by overemphasising physicality of Black people to try and say they were closer to animals than humans and striping them of their human intelligence, like Americans killing black for being able to read, erasing the precolonial achievements of Africans such as farming, modern medicine, armour, cutlery, pottery instruments to make them seem more savage. The legacy of this propaganda is still with us with people only seeing the physical aspects of black people and not intellectual aspects. In the UK and t USA black West Africans are now the most educated group in these countries.

The player who navigated both aspects the best was seedorf He had both brains and brawns to his advantage

Yes, I was thinking about this for a long time, and now you make a great video about it, like you are reading my mind :) Also, I notice that the public always assigns a black player successor to another black player, and never black to white or Asian, and vice versa. Henry's and Ronaldo's (Brazilian) successor is Mbappe, Ibrahimović's is Haaland, Zidane's is De Bruyne etc. For me Henry's style is more similar to Kakas, the ball control and pushing the ball into the open space, making a run... De Bruynes style of playing reminds me of Clarence Seedorf, even though they don't play in the exact same position, they have that intelligent vision, making right choices and great passes, they are both strong on the ball etc. That is just a few of a lot of examples. But unfortunately, we often see just skin color and that stops us from seeing a person's character, style, skills and some inner similarities between players.

Appearance can easily affect our biases. You would say red is passion and blue is calm, which is why a red Ferrari just looks faster than a blue one. That's how our brain has been programmed and it's also how graphic designers make color choices most of the time. We just have to be mindful when we apply these biases on human.

Yes, there is a bias, but when you watch a lot of African teams play, they do really rely on physicality to win, often times they are not tactically sound, hence the reason why they perform poorly on the global stage. It's not an issue of racism per se, it's just a pattern that has repeated itself overtime.

This is all BS. It's not stereotypes, but facts. How you can say for example about Lukaku that he is a "technical, finesse player" and so on, when he clearly isn't. He is an athletic player. And he was that since early age, and that made him pro player that today he is. And it's not about color. For example Halaand, he is white, yet everyone says that he is strong, fast and so on. On the other hand, you have Messi & Ronaldo example... One is technical, "talented", bla bla. And another is strong, fast and so on. So it has nothing to do with color of players, just fact. Black players are in general stronger & faster than white players, those are facts... Take a look at other sports, NBA, Runners, Boxing, and so on. it's dominated by black players because they're stronger & faster... Also take a look at youth national teams level, Nigeria, France and so on, are dominating youth levels, because their players at youth age are much more developed in terms of physicality... But yea, for leftists in today's world, facts are "racism".

Don’t agree, what about Ronaldo , Haaland and zlatan there were considered big strong , Athletic.

With football becoming more physical it is not necessaraly a bad thing to be more powerful. Ronaldinho and Vinicius and lukaku can be described as powerful but there intelligence is not exactly denied. The French team developing over history to becoming more diverse and then having many black players cannot mean that black players are seen only as powerful and lacking intelligence so there are some nuances. When sport is reliant on power and athleticism is can be hard to assign power and pace as criticism. when it comes to technicality then it might be interesting to see if the asian, specially the Chinese and Japanese, are rated as more technical than western athletes that are not asian or if the Russians are rated as more technical or more powerful the the Americans in a given sport.

Is this post or a short clip of this available on LINKEDIN?

The one I used to bug me is when commentators would call African teams in the World Cups as tatictally naive.

Great video

An eye opener! Great 'tour de force' guys!! This is call to all areas of human activity, not only football or even 'sport' generally concieved.

Stereotypes are bad, but not unfounded. Look at the 2022 world cup final, it was clear which side was physically dominant. Not just football, look at track sports, boxing, basketball, all sports requiring peak athletic ability, but blacks are more dominant. It is what it is. But its never the same across the board anyway, and fair treatment is a must.

Ever heard or Yaya Toure, Jude Bellingham or Aurelien Tchouameni? 😂

Its ok to say that germans have great morale, italians perfect in defending strategy, the spaniards/portugal great technics etc Same way are african teams physicly high but lose tacticly. Its objective description of reality

Stereotypes don’t come out of thin air

I think this only apply to the players that are from africa. And these generalazation just doesn't translate to skin colors. To nations like most Brazilian football players described as very good on the ball, skillful dribblers and Brazilian's skin color is so diverced right?

comparing lewandooski a guy who was won literally everything he played in club level and is considered a generational talent with victor osimhem who has won nothing other than 1 seria a title. and they saying they both are equal. I'd say you people are being racist towards lewandovski.

I've also heard the stereotype that Asians are "small and fast", South Americans are "aggressive", and Africans "physical".

If you're biased by racial stereotype in football, you just clearly don't watch enough football

I never cared much about unconcious bias, but I do think its true in this sport. The black strikers, midfielders and defenders rarely credited for their intelligences. In the highest football level, strengths cannot be matter as much as brain and skill, but they got rarely described that way Two books I read, illustrated the point further. In the Secret Footballer book 10 years ago, he described that most players and coaches did not realized how great and skillful a playmaker, Claude Makelele was. Claude Makelele was the one that started the attack, he did not just do the defending and pass to better players as people thought. In Wenger book he described Walcot as an intelligent runner and Kanu as a genius. We did not hear much about that, other than pace and strength. I can't call unconcious bias, I prefer to call it a lazy sterotype.

Why would you say "this white guy" to my man Lewandowski, bro

This can be true and untrue. Prime E.g. Thierry Henry: I’m 20 now if you told me 5 years ago the Henry was 6’2” I would not beleive you. Because for someone who was categorically tall he was way more clever than athletic. Rudd Gullit, Clarance Seedorf, Eto’o (although he was shorter than the rest at 5’11”). And for athletic teams that were white have you ever heard of stoke city. Average height of 6’2” with Delap, Shawcross, Crouch, Collins, Huth, Jonathan Walters, John Carew (mixed raced but either way). And this team got into Europe.

The truth is if you understand football you see the qualities and the lack of qualities in every player… e.g. Havertz & Nuñez offer more physicality than most players… Conor Gallagher can show a full body work out (no eqpt.) on the pitch 🤷‍♂️

The thumbnail is crazy

Pele, Garrincha, Eusebio, Coluna?

the treatment of sadio mane is the perfect example of this. Say no to racism. There's a lot of racist pundits and managers in the top flights

for me a big example is Thomas and Gerd Müller

Finally someone is talking about it. Its disgusting when i hear pundits speak. They do it every single time.

I have Managed an African football team. On the ball most players were brilliant and creative (as well as having that pace and power) but attacking they rarely worked together. Off the ball they lacked tactical cohesion. As Defenders they made excellent strong clinical tackles but they also got sucked into challenges and drawn out of position. Basically they are great players but some should work on their teamwork more.

A great example of this is with African midfielders playing in the EPL. Just compare where they play with their clubs, versus where they play when they are with their national teams. A great example of this is Mohammed Kudus. With Ghana, he doesn't play on the wings, but rather centrally right behind the strikers, yet at Ajax and now at West Ham, he plays primarily on the wings. When Essien played for Ghana, he NEVER played CDM, always the number 8 and even sometimes a 10, but for Chelsea, and his other clubs in Europe, always a CDM. Yet Essien had the intelligence, passing range and tactical awareness to play the advance midfield role for Ghana for many years. Same with Mikel, played the advanced midfield role for Nigeria, but with his European clubs, he was played just in front of the defense. Yaya Toure despite being played at CDM with Man City, still score 20 goals from that position, again this is another player who played a much more advanced role with Ivory Coast. Imagine if Yaya played a more advanced role with City, think of how many more goals he would've score. In fact, we're talking about a player who was made to play as a center back at Barcelona all because of his "physique" and "power". This nonsense has to stop.

6:47 there aren’t pushing into this, that is so inaccurate if a player has the qualities to play in a certain position and can do it effectively he would be played there. And by your logic the African teams shouldn’t be able to field certain positions like defence, defensive midfield or full back.

Who is "we"

This is content ❤

This is no surprise to me, i e been saying this for years in the UK when they describe black players. He's big fast and strong.😂

1. Most of the commentator and media most of the time write wrong about football. 2. Person are not the Media, if a percent of media think in this way don't mean that people agree whit them. 3. You choose the wrong people, one of the best midfielder whit technic and intelligence of the first 2000 was Seedorf (yes a black guy) and if you start to think you will find a lot more.

Idk man maybe it’s cuz I’m also a minority(not white) but I see a player like Harland and I think physically gifted while a player like mbappe or vini jr as more technically sound.

I am a grassroots football coach in Spain and on my team we have a stereotypical African player, big, fast and strong, but lacking technical and tactical skills compared to another small, slow and weak white boy who does have them. It's not just about prejudice or racial bias, but that's the way things are often enough to influence popular perception.

There's some truth in this. For example, we rarely see black African players develop into the technical playmaker role. I think there's an unconscious bias to develop them into playing positions that exploit their physical characteristics - regardless if they show a propensity for a more technical playstyle.

Well said, I hear there commentary bs every game I watch a game of football.

I think the point of the video is still relevant but you have to look at the comparison. Lewandowski vs Osimhen for sure Osimhen is faster! And for a player like Bellingham nobody would say he is just athletic. It also depends.

We? who is we?

I knew who Senegal were by 0:15 because of the dribbling happening there 😅😂 We are very biased.

A 10 minute video on skin pigmentation and 1 minute tiktok short for the historic 1Billion Nike-DFB deal. Yeah no wonder you lot are getting defunded.

I thikk that they all have pace and power. Both white and black players

as a black guy, who plays football, who's skillful, strong, fast, and technical. I think you are mostly wrong. if we take a look at football right now, outside of our biases we can see that there is a difference between black and white players, i am not saying that black players do not have technical skills but black footballers fall more on the physical, fast side (again, i am not saying that don't have technical skill)

Bro lewandowski is a graduate

Because they are faster on average. Ever saw Olympia?

5:32 im sorry but comparing victor osimhen againts robert lewandowski and callin lewa "this white guy" is pretty damn wild, ofc lewas gettin praise for his intelligence and work ethic cuz those 2 words perfectly describes his qualities, how he plays and his consistency as an aging superstar whos not physically as good as he used to be, hes the top scorer in europes top 5 leagues in the last 10 years, he moved to a new team at aged 34 and immediately adapted to become the top scorer there too, also the praises for osimhen is a pretty good description of him too as a 25 year old striker in his prime, including his link up play as shown in the vid. Theres definitely bias in describing players based on color, but you guys should watch out in picking out examples if u want to be taken seriously.

Jay-Jay Okocha 😊 2 Ballon D'or 😊

CR7 is strong. Rooney is strong. Steven Gerrard is strong. Haaland is strong. Valverde is strong. Rodrygo is not strong. Osimhen is not strong. Gakpo is not strong.

dembele

How much money is spent by African countries and their clubs on football research and Development in football not much . European clubs and countries spend so much money on that . Thus they have much better coaches, train their players better. It’s not racial it’s just facts

Really good video idea, but i feel it was rushed with very kittle context with the data, you speak about skill and mention Lukaku when he is not the most skilfull of players but yet is one of the strongest which is what he himself knows, mentioned pace and bring up Lewondowski who isnt blessed with the most pace. There are truths in the bias we have that doesn't necessarily mean it has bad intentions.

I'd pay top dollar to see how white football pundits would describe Gavi(Barcelona) and his style of play, if he were black.The racism would be generational.

Lol I clicked because I've also realised this. Part of me thought, it's because that's what most of them bring. 😅

There is should be no categorisation of players whether they are black or white, this is football a sport unlike any other,football is an emotion 🔥, leave racism and all types of nonsense outside the arena.

Germans never beating the allegations

Hey!!, does it mean that mbappe , Henry are not clever but strong only

Racism and sort of Ignorance!

great video, we have been programmed to be biased

Racism is one thing, Stereotype is another, Political Correctness is also another. Bias is just intentions against context. I just summed up the facets of this content.

JALDABALDADALDATAR!

No this is wrong and embarrassing. Race is real. Race matters. Race is the foundation of identity. IQ is the best barometer for intelligence ever created, and the results are in. These observations are founded in observable, quantifiable reality. In direct contract to the social "science" being touted by "experts" (charity case hires) in this video. This is an instructive video on the decline of social science as a geopolitical tool however, so for that thank you for the video.

Different situation but similar to the topic, here in the States we often here black American Football players refer to each other as "dawgs". While I personally do not use "dawg" as a trait, because the use of the word is unnatural to me, when a fellow white friend uses "dawg" to describe a black player it doesn't bother me as that is a term routinely used by black players to describe one another. So in that situation the stereotype is reinforced by those whom the stereotype is used against. Such nuance should be taken into account when broader discussions about this topic is raised. Note: Here in the States the "n" word is viewed as racist when used by a white person but "dawg" is not. Just using an example of how stereotypes can be reinforced by those that are stereotyped by it.

There’s a simple reason: No color.

this isn't racism of journalists. this is reality. they are seeing what they want to see. this video had very little empirical evidence beyond the first 20 seconds, rest was prejudices. most black players who broke through into the Premier league did so for their physical abilities. not their technical or intellectual abilities. anyone who thinks african countries are technically or tactically equal to South America or Europe is delusional. brasil are black and i can gaurantee no one describes them like that. yes 100% there is racism, but a big part of that is an exaggeration of an underlying reality that black players are not technically or tactically as talented as Europe or South America. if they were, they wouldn't have such an abysmal world cup record.

The biggest "unconscious bias" I see in this video, is how it automatically attributes the differences in perceptions of people to skin colour. Because it's the only reason why I would see Lewandowski and Lukaku in different light, right? It absolutely has nothing to do with how Lukaku makes an idiot of himself in the media for example? Or how clumsy his ball control is?

Pep Guardiola watching this ☠️

Maybe you can make a video about Asian players like Son Heung Min, Minamino, Shinji Kagawa, or Park Ji Sung. Or North African players like Hakimi, Zidane, Mo Salah, or Ziyech. Human beings is not only black and white thought

Hahahaha that’s why they hate Andre Onana so much😢😢😢

So what? Who says that intelligence is a more desirable trait than strength in football anyway? I bet you won't talk about why black players are overrepresented in the sport.

Beh Lukaku è un bidone. E' normale che non dicano che sia bravo con i piesi.Eto era forte.

it boils down to racism nothing else

Sports lingo is different from what you insist is racism.

6:38 this is just not understanding, football isnt it. He said there are certain positions that black, more athletic players are "Pushed" into. My brother in the Lord.. a slower "white"winger will never be more favourable than a faster "black" winger that's just how football works.. its not a more athletic player.. its a more athletic POSITION and it's not black players fault that they're gifted with being faster than most others. I don't remember anyone complaining that Wembanyama at his 7'1 isn't a shooting guard because his shooting is very, very good, No he's a power forward because of his height, that PUSH to become a power forward from maybe his dad or coach brought out his potential. Was it bad?

why all the thumb's downs