Premier League side West Ham United have been subject of accusations of racism after reportedly telling football agents that they don’t want to sign any more African players, as per the Daily Mail.
The club’s Director of Player recruitment, Tony Henry admitted that West Ham wanted to limit the number of African players in their squad because ‘they have a bad attitude’ and ‘cause mayhem when they are not in the team’.
The Mail claim that Henry sent an email on January 27th, in response to an inquiry about a Cameroonian player, to another senior West Ham official and an agent, in which he wrote:
We don’t want any more Africans and he’s not good enough. I sent Thomas to watch him and the other lad last week and he said no. If Palace take them good luck.
The Mail then asked Henry if West Ham had/have club policy when it comes to buying African players, to which he replied ‘no’.
However, the reported then told the West Ham official that other agents had confirmed that he’d told them that the club didn’t want to sign more Africans. When asked if this was true, he said:
Yeah, because we had three and we felt we didn’t particularly want any more African players.
Asked why that was the case, Henry replied:
Erm, no reason. It’s nothing racist at all. It’s just sometimes they can have a bad attitude. We had problems with Sakho, with Diafra Sakho. We find that when they are not in the team they cause mayhem. It’s nothing against the African race at all. I mean, look, there are top African players. There’s not a problem with them. It’s just sometimes they cause a lot of problems when they are not playing, as we had with Diafra. He’s left, so great. It’s nothing personal at all.
Asked if he thought his comments were derogatory to African footballers, Henry replied:
No. I don’t know what you are trying to get at here. All I said was, look, we have a great lad in [Cheikhou] Kouyate, he’s brilliant, a great player for us, he’s a good lad but the likes of Sakho have caused mayhem. When he’s not playing, he always wants a new deal. That’s all it was. It was nothing discriminatory at all. I could say we get offered Russian players. I just find with Russian players that they don’t settle in England. It’s like Italians. How many Italians come and settle in England? As a club we are not discriminatory at all. If you’ve got too many, they all sit together and it becomes a situation where you can have problems. But then you can have problems with English players. I don’t know what you are driving at.
The Mail contacted West Ham on Wednesday for a response to the comments and this was their statement:
West Ham United is an inclusive, respectful and diverse football club. Equality is at the heart of our ethos and values. We were recently given the opportunity to demonstrate the extent of our firm commitment to these values, which are embedded throughout the Club, with a view to achieving the intermediate level of the Premier League’s equality mark, recognised and supported by Kick it Out. We have worked extremely hard over the last 18 months across all areas of the Club and we are confident in our achievements. All West Ham United employees are required to go on equality, diversity and unconscious-bias training as part of our new mandatory training and workforce plan. We take any allegations of discrimination extremely seriously and are now in the process of ascertaining the full facts behind this accusation.
