According to former Arsenal striker Ian Wright; the criticism that plagues Manchester City and England winger, Raheem Sterling is driven by racism.
It is not news to many of us that Sterling has faced frequent media disapproval for a vast spectrum of things, from shopping at Primark to buying his mother a house. With the most recent uproar following the revelation of young player’s rifle tattoo.
Sterling was also criticised over his World Cup performances for England this summer. Ian Wright commented in response to all of this presenting the question, “How many people do you see get the criticism Sterling gets?”
Whilst on BBC Radio 5 live’s Monday Night Club, Wright goes onto say, “The football criticism is something every player has to deal with, but what he gets I don’t see any other footballer getting.”
Ex-Chelsea striker Chris Sutton also spoke out on 5 live saying that he thinks the “outside stuff” did affect Sterling’s World Cup performances, adding, “I don’t understand it because last season for City he really matured into a top player. He was one of the reasons why they were so devastating”.
The former Arsenal and England veteran believes that there is an agenda against Raheem. Stating that other footballers don’t get that stick because for whatever reason they don’t rub up people in the corridors of power the wrong way. I think there is an agenda against him”.
Wright also spoke on the potential reasoning for the criticism that Sterling is continuously subject to, “There is an element of people at the high end of the media who want to keep that guy down. Simple… When you look at the wave of criticism that he takes, there is a certain amount of racism towards it – what else can it be?
“They are picking on him because of the background has he come from and they want to keep him down, drag him back down. They don’t want him to continue to be a success.”
Ian Wright also retorts to claims of playing the ‘racism card’, “people say you are playing the racism card but you give me a good reason why Raheem Sterling gets the stick he gets for just being a footballer”.
Sterling consistently received low ratings on the BBC Sport webstite’s Player Rating tool during the Russia World Cup, with an average rating of 4.66. Whilst in the duration of the tournament Sterling spoke on the matter saying that he no longer cares about the media picking on him.
For more on the matter, check out COP90’s documentary on England and the Media right here on GRM daily.