With the FA suspended seven games for discriminatory remarks made by Bentancourt against Son Heung-min, the British public media BBC focused on cases of racism in the Premier League against East and Southeast Asian players on the 21st (Korea time) and expressed concern about the current situation in which the number of racist cases is increasing every year.
BBC says anti-racism charity KIO has seen a rise in both incidents of racism against East and Southeast Asian athletes and reports of it"The statistics were released.
In the 2023-2024 season, there were a total of 395 reports of racist abuse directed at players in stadiums and online, up a whopping 118 from 277 in the 2022-2023 season. Of the reports of racism targeting certain players last season, 55% were targeting East Asian players, and 327 (35%) of the 937 reports of racism by players received by KIO over the past five seasons were for seven East and Southeast Asian players.
Samuel Okafor, CEO of Kick It Out, said "There are a lot of reports of this type of racism coming in. These reports send a clear message to football fans that they will not tolerate discrimination. The message that the soccer community should listen to..."
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The BBC said that the most famous East Asian players in the Premier League are South Korea's Son Heung-min (Tottenham) and Hwang Hee-chan (Wolverhamton), Japan's Mittoma Koro (Brighton), Tomiyasu Takehiro (Arnall), Kamada Daichi (Crystal Palace), and Sugawara Yukinari (Southampton), referring to Marco Courtois' suspension from FIFA in October for racist abuse against Wolverhampton Hwang Hee-chan in a pre-season friendly.
However, it was Tottenham captain Son Heung-min who was targeted most often as well as his world-class skills and explosive popularity. BBC said Son Heung-min has been racist several times since he entered the Premier League in 2015. Most recently, Nottingham Forest supporters were disciplined to be barred from the foreground and pointed out that similar incidents took place publicly among Manchester United, Chelsea, Crystal Palace and West Ham fans between 2019 and 2023.
He also introduced Tottenham's internal reaction to Bentancourt's recent racism-related disciplinary action in detail. The Tottenham club said "We accept the FA Independent Regulatory Commission's conviction, but we think the sanctions against him are harsh"I have filed an appeal.
"As a group and team for Tottenham, I think we are drawing a line and moving forward," defender Ben Davies, Son's best friend and Wales international, said of the disciplinary action. "Ultimately, it's important to realize that we need to look at these kinds of things seriously." Tottenham manager Angie Postecoglou accepted the FA's disciplinary action in an interview saying that Bentancourt made a big mistake and should be punished.
According to the BBC, racism is common not only for Asian players in the Premier League but also for Asian fans. Kevin Yuan, a London-based Chinese producer of Premier League video content, said in an interview: "We go through this every week. Cruelly frankly, I go through this every week." He mentioned everyday racism toward soccer fans from East Asia as well as famous players. After the European Champions League final in June, he also revealed that he was subjected to racist abuse by Real Madrid supporters outside Wembley Stadium. "While I was producing football content with a female colleague, I heard racist chants about Chinese women. "When I asked a fan what he meant, he said it means 'We're champions', but the next day, I heard from my Spanish friends that it was a very racist slogan, and I was extremely offended." "It seems to be part of our job to be subjected to this kind of violent behavior. I go through this every time I film in several stadiums before and after the game. This happens regardless of which team you support. I came to the UK in 2008 and watch games every week, but I feel like I don't always fit in. I want people to understand how anxious we are and think from our perspective," he added.
Maxwell Min, who works for the Frank Sue Foundation, the first non-white (non-white) player to play in England in 1945, also pointed out the local tendency to ignore Asian fans. "It is easy to conclude that people in East and Southeast Asia do not play soccer. It tended to be easy to ignore the idea that it was playing at a level unrelated to the FA system"There may also be a simple fact that in recent years, through Korean and Japanese players, Asians have begun to play at the highest level in our stadium."He explained why racism is soaring. "There are more new fans visiting the stadium, and there are areas where they are classified as so-called 'tourists' or overlooking the fact that interest in soccer is shallow and not deep," he added. "I've also had negative events, but I can work here now because of my love for soccer."When I was young, I thought Park Ji-sung of Manchester United would be the best player to become an Asian player. However, as Son Heung-min became the first Asian player to win the Golden Boot and become a legend of Tottenham, his dreams and positive expectations for the future grew together," he said.
