We have received the following letter from Peter Diprose (published verbatim):
“To my fellow aging footballers.
Much effort has been made to stamp out racism in our beloved game at a professional level.
Recent events in America have brought in to focus the need to challenge racism wherever we find it.
It is clear that it is no longer enough to say you are not racialist or even sit by whilst other are racist , satisfying yourself that it’s nothing to do with you.
Don’t get me wrong, most of us don’t want conflict nor do we look for it.
So it raises the question how do we deal with racism in our game of walking football?
How do we challenge such behavior?
How do we protect those who are subjected to, and are the subject of racism?
I feel that we should all be protected by our club to help us all beat racism when we find it.
Our club motto is Fun, friendship, and fitness. There’s no fun or friendship in race discrimination. Without a clear position from our club it could be argued there is a lack of fitness on the clubs behalf to protect those that would be subjected to such behavior. Our club was the first in the Algarve, it was the first to win a competition let be the first to publish our commitment to stamping out racism in the Portuguesa walking football family.
I know that with leadership from Jon and Chris our club can make a clear statement that racism has no place in our old fart game either. And they should provide clear sanctions to those who have mistreated fellow players, or anyone else for that matter with racism as there motive.
Please join me in asking our club to put proper measures in place to protect us all from racism.
Peter Diprose.”
(If you wish to respond, please email Peter directly by clicking here)
Peter is right that there is no fun or friendship in racism. There is also no fun or friendship in excessive criticism or bullying of less capable players.