‘ Disappointing by our club ‘

Interesting article and makes good points. And whilst I’m obviously not saying City fans are racist, it’s true that for such a diverse area there seems to be a lack of diversity amongst our match day attendance.






My City, My Shirt Celebrates The Rich Culture of Cardiff While Tackling Racism in Football

The photography project run by Yusuf Ismail and Shawqi Hasson, which was designed to help unify Wales’ football and BIPOC communities, was astonishingly rejected by Cardiff City Football Club for encouraging ‘reverse racism’. Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin speaks to Ismail to find out more.

12th November 2020


WORDS by Prishita Maheshwari-Aplin


IMAGES Courtesy of Shawqi Hasson

As Yusuf Ismail, a Cardiff-based creative, sat with his best friend at a Cardiff City match in August 2019, it dawned on him that they were the only visible People of Colour (PoCs) in the entire stadium. This alienating experience was even more staggering within the context that roughly 70% of the entire Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPoC) community of Wales lives in Cardiff; while many of them are likely to be football fans, it was clear to Ismail that they did not feel sufficiently welcome.

“For me as a Black man born and raised in Cardiff, it was the first time that I had felt this conscious about the colour of my skin”, says Ismail. “After going to several more games and still seeing no people of colour, I realised this was a real issue and simply felt compelled to do something about it”.

It’s no secret that racism runs deep within the veins of football culture on a UK-wide scale. Home Office figures show that more than 150 football-related racist incidents were reported to police last season, showing a 50% increase in cases than last year, and more than double the number from three seasons ago. A recent report by RunRepeat, a Danish research firm, suggested that racial bias is evident even in football commentary, where players with lighter skin are regularly and overwhelmingly praised for intelligence, work ethic and quality, while those with darker skin are reduced to physical and athletic attributes. Today, as I type ‘racism’ into Google, the second recommended search is ‘racism in football’.

The daily reality for the BIPoC professional footballers who make up around 33% percent (as of the 2017-2018 season) of the Premier League garnered mainstream attention following a racial verbal attack from a Manchester City fan against Raheem Sterling in December 2018. Since then, conscious efforts to combat discrimination in the sport by groups such as Kick It Out have gained momentum and support, especially in light of the Black Lives Matter movement. However, when confronting such historically ingrained systemic biases within a cultural framework built on the spoils of colonialism and white supremacy, the march uphill towards progress is long and arduous, and, often, community-led grassroots initiatives have the most meaningful impact.




In the spirit of this, Ismail and photographer Shawqi Hasson decided to use their collective skills and lived experiences to create a project to address the issues they identified. Thus, My City, My Shirt, which uses photography to explore themes such as race, inclusion & identity in the world of football, as well as celebrating the rich cultural heritage of their hometown, Cardiff, and the inspiring stories of their subjects.

“Starting with a poster campaign, we took portraits of people of colour in Cardiff wearing the shirt, which is a statement within itself, then we put these posters across the city on match days for a few months”, says Ismail. “Just so we could normalise the idea of People of Colour wearing the Cardiff City shirt.”

Following this, they exhibited the full body of work – a total of 23 portraits – in Cardiff during Black History Month, which was attended by many BIPoC individuals, who finally felt represented by a team they loved.

Unfortunately, this celebration of the city’s diversity and beauty was not well-received by all. According to Ismail, they were refused the official support of Cardiff City, who told me that they dismissed their project as encouraging ‘reverse racism’ – a damning representation of the normalisation of racism within football, and within the wider society.




Incredibly inspired by this campaign, I spoke further with Yusuf Ismail regarding his inspiration behind this project and their experience with the Cardiff City Football Club.




Prishita: Why was it important for you to have the involvement of the Cardiff City club? Could you tell me more about your experience with them?

Yusuf: I thought it important to involve the Cardiff City Football Club because I felt they could use their platform to reach out to People of Colour in Cardiff. The relationship between the Cardiff BIPoC communities and Cardiff City is non-existent; our hope was to use this project as a real turning point in community relations.

Early on in the project, we were invited by the club for a meeting to discuss our project with their Community Engagement Manager. We showed her some portraits, some campaign imagery and some short films that we had created for the project. Even though she said she loved the work, she seemed confused about the intent behind our project and was worried that if the club was seen to support such a project, it could run the risk of alienating their existing fan base. She stated that it could even be perceived as “reverse racism” if preferential treatment was shown to BIPoC communities – a statement that left us extremely confused and upset that someone would hold such views. It’s attitudes like these that highlight the importance of our work. If anyone feels that making a space more inclusive is a problem, then it’s clear that they are the problem!




P: You’re completely right about that. What a challenging situation to find yourself in. Did you face any other challenges during this project?

Y: Walking home from the very first shoot, I was stopped and searched by three plain-clothed police officers. They pulled up their car in front of me and started to question me, accusing me of having thrown bags of drugs at a group of people I had just passed by on my walk. I made it very clear to them that I had no involvement in anything of the sort, but they continued in a hostile manner, searching my clothes and my bags. When they spotted the football shirts we had used in the shoot, they asked me where the receipt was. I was really taken aback, and stressed that these shirts were my property, to which they only replied, “But how long ago did you buy them? Do you have receipts?”

They eventually realised that they had nothing more to go on and drove away without as much as an apology. They’d humiliated me in front of my entire neighbourhood. And I know that this is the reality for Black men in Cardiff; all over the country. I dread to think how quickly the situation could have gone south if I’d not been as cooperative or if I was younger or less articulate.

I’m pretty sure this one incident would have deterred 99% of people from continuing with the exhibition had they been in my shoes. But I just kept going as if nothing happened and didn’t even tell my closest friends, who will probably hear about it for the first time reading this interview.

The relationship between the Cardiff BIPoC communities and Cardiff City is non-existent; our hope was to use this project as a real turning point in community relations.

Yusuf Ismail
P: That’s truly awful and very indicative of the need for your project. I’m so sorry that happened to you. Perhaps to shift to a more positive topic, would you like to share your favourite part of this project?

Y: The shoot with Ken, the owner of Xquisite Africa. Xquisite Africa is a self-proclaimed “one stop shop” for all African goods; selling everything from the latest weaves to the rarest of herbal spices. It’s not just a store, but a cultural hub. The shoot was surreal for many different reasons – I learnt so much and the experience was so culturally rich that something within me was changed afterwards. As one of the oldest Black-owned businesses in Cardiff, the store is considered somewhat of a landmark within the Black community. Meeting Ken’s mother, ‘Mama’, was really special; she was very supportive of our project and understood why representation is so important.

P: It’s so fantastic that these wonderful stories could be told through the exhibition. Could you tell me more about how you worked with Kick It Out to make it a reality?

Y: After the conversation with Cardiff City, we decided to look at alternative partners and were introduced to a campaign by Kick It Out called Fans for Diversity. This is spearheaded by Anwar Uddin, a former West Ham player who was the first Bangladeshi footballer to ever play professionally in England. Anwar has worked on creative projects in the past and understood the importance of what we were trying to do. He was keen to support us and helped secure funding for our exhibition.

P: I was really overwhelmed by the beauty of these photographs and the message behind them, and very aware of how positive it would’ve been for me to be exposed to such imagery growing up. What impact do you think this exhibition would have had on you if you’d been able to experience it as a child?

Y: Inspiring children and serving the needs of the youth is one of the things that is forever at the forefront of my mind. As a child, I would always be looking outside of Cardiff for all my inspiration. I felt this project gave us the chance to change that and show Cardiff in a new light. We started the project off with a visual campaign using some of the early portraits, placing large format posters all across Cardiff. The impact they had was immediate; we had totally reimagined what the club could be. I made sure we put some posters up near high schools where the majority of pupils are from BIPoC working class communities, like myself. This was important to me because I wanted these students to see people from our communities looking larger than life.

In my mind, I was envisioning a kid looking out the window of the school bus and seeing someone from their neighbourhood looking like a superhero. I remember being sent a video of school girls screaming like they had seen Justin Beiber when they saw Ayah Abdul, who set up the first hijabi-wearing all-girls football team in Cardiff and is revered for her community work, on one of our posters near their school. That one video made my whole month and was confirmation to me that our project was very necessary.

P: That’s wonderful! I look forward to being able to experience the exhibition in person in the future. What’re your plans with this project going forward?

Y: We’re very aware that similar issues exist in other cities, so we feel that our work has really only just begun. We feel this project is needed in cities up and down the UK and we are currently in talks with several interested parties. We really want to make every project unique and exclusive to that particular city. We will also be exhibiting our Cardiff project in London in the new year, which is something we are really looking forward to.

We feel this project is needed in cities up and down the UK – we really want to make every project unique and exclusive to that particular city.

Yusuf Ismail

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Must have some pretty good eyesight to pan every face in the ground. The article therefore renders itself worthless after one paragraph. It’s pretty boring as well.

Cardiff City about 14 years ago spent 3 years giving free tickets to all the ethnic communities and really tried their best, they never really wanted to come along, City promoted it massively and work in the surrounding communities to this day inviting them.

Our club has never been racist and is still not racist, very proud of that

The local schools use our club free of charge to study / learn and use our computers etc .

Cardiff City FC and our fans are more than welcoming to all people from all backgrounds.


TOTALLY TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THE ABOVE / ITS UP TO PEOLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE TO COME ALONG

Cardiff City about 14 years ago spent 3 years giving free tickets to all the ethnic communities and really tried their best, they never really wanted to come along, City promoted it massively and work in the surrounding communities to this day inviting them.

Our club has never been racist and is still not racist, very proud of that

The local schools use our club free of charge to study / learn and use our computers etc .

Cardiff City FC and our fans are more than welcoming to all people from all backgrounds.


TOTALLY TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THE ABOVE / ITS UP TO PEOLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE TO COME ALONG

I do agree obviously that the club and our fan base aren’t racist. I just think it was a bit of a shot in the foot not to engage with a local project designed to try and get more people to come along and support the boys, then made worse by the reasoning that they don’t want to be seen promoting ‘reverse racism’

edit: all it would’ve taken is a tweet or something to raise awareness of the project

Cardiff City about 14 years ago spent 3 years giving free tickets to all the ethnic communities and really tried their best, they never really wanted to come along, City promoted it massively and work in the surrounding communities to this day inviting them.

Our club has never been racist and is still not racist, very proud of that

The local schools use our club free of charge to study / learn and use our computers etc .

Cardiff City FC and our fans are more than welcoming to all people from all backgrounds.


TOTALLY TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THE ABOVE / ITS UP TO PEOLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE TO COME ALONG

I do agree obviously that the club and our fan base aren’t racist. I just think it was a bit of a shot in the foot not to engage with a local project designed to try and get more people to come along and support the boys, then made worse by the reasoning that they don’t want to be seen promoting ‘reverse racism’

edit: all it would’ve taken is a tweet or something to raise awareness of the project

Yes that probably could of been done, but I just see people jumping on the band wagon and starting to
make out virtually everything in the UK is now racist and it’s 100% not.

As to our club being racist , then I can assure everyone from top to bottom we are not and never have been far far from it.
I have seen for myself how much our club through the years has reached out to the ethnic communities and still do.
You can only do so much.

Just a minor point, but if we're going to import the term BIPoC from the States wouldn't the 'Indigenous' part of the acronym literally be referring to those of us of Celtic origin, who I'm pretty sure are white, thus making the whole phrase completely redundant?

Also, there is no actual time spent in the article to assess the percentages in detail, other than the sweeping assertion that 70% of the ethnic population of Wales.

Even if we take that at face value, most estimates of the non-white population in Cardiff are around 11%.

Within that what percentage are likely to be City fans? How many are male and how many female as more boys will like football than girls statistically? What age ranges? What financial background? All of these would need to be understood to see if there was actually a case to be made. Having skim-read the article, it seems no such question has been asked.

Another massive factor could also simply be the fact that a huge number of football fans are introduced to their team by their parents - if a first-generation immigrant from Syria arrives as a Liverpool fan and has a kid here, is he likely to want his son to grow up as a Liverpool fan or a Cardiff fan? What are the chances of an immigrant arriving in Cardiff a fully-fledged Bluebird desperate to fulfil his life-long dream of visiting the CCS?

With a kind-hearted focus, these lads are just naive and have never been challenged on why they think their observations are all some massive injustice when it could just as easily be that there just aren't that many ethnic minorities who actually want to be Cardiff fans.

A less benevolent look at it, and reading between the lines and paying attention to some of the language used in the article, they're just another pair of grifters on the grievance studies gravy train.

Cardiff City about 14 years ago spent 3 years giving free tickets to all the ethnic communities and really tried their best, they never really wanted to come along, City promoted it massively and work in the surrounding communities to this day inviting them.

Our club has never been racist and is still not racist, very proud of that

The local schools use our club free of charge to study / learn and use our computers etc .

Cardiff City FC and our fans are more than welcoming to all people from all backgrounds.


TOTALLY TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THE ABOVE / ITS UP TO PEOLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE TO COME ALONG

I do agree obviously that the club and our fan base aren’t racist. I just think it was a bit of a shot in the foot not to engage with a local project designed to try and get more people to come along and support the boys, then made worse by the reasoning that they don’t want to be seen promoting ‘reverse racism’

edit: all it would’ve taken is a tweet or something to raise awareness of the project

The reason why so few people from ethnic minorities attend football matches is that they are led to believe that they will encounter racism the moment they enter the ground. At most clubs this is clearly not the case, but the media have chosen to follow this false narrative that has been created by the so called anti racists who have done more damage to race relations in this country than Enoch Powell ever did. Until someone in authority is brave enough to call out organisations like Kick it Out who fuel the flames, the nonsense will continue. As most of us actually go to games know, there is very little racism at football matches. How can there be when half your side are black?

edit: all it would’ve taken is a tweet or something to raise awareness of the project

That's a fair point.

Just a minor point, but if we're going to import the term BIPoC from the States wouldn't the 'Indigenous' part of the acronym literally be referring to those of us of Celtic origin, who I'm pretty sure are white, thus making the whole phrase completely redundant?

Also, there is no actual time spent in the article to assess the percentages in detail, other than the sweeping assertion that 70% of the ethnic population of Wales.

Even if we take that at face value, most estimates of the non-white population in Cardiff are around 11%.

Within that what percentage are likely to be City fans? How many are male and how many female as more boys will like football than girls statistically? What age ranges? What financial background? All of these would need to be understood to see if there was actually a case to be made. Having skim-read the article, it seems no such question has been asked.

Another massive factor could also simply be the fact that a huge number of football fans are introduced to their team by their parents - if a first-generation immigrant from Syria arrives as a Liverpool fan and has a kid here, is he likely to want his son to grow up as a Liverpool fan or a Cardiff fan? What are the chances of an immigrant arriving in Cardiff a fully-fledged Bluebird desperate to fulfil his life-long dream of visiting the CCS?

With a kind-hearted focus, these lads are just naive and have never been challenged on why they think their observations are all some massive injustice when it could just as easily be that there just aren't that many ethnic minorities who actually want to be Cardiff fans.

A less benevolent look at it, and reading between the lines and paying attention to some of the language used in the article, they're just another pair of grifters on the grievance studies gravy train.

I’d be very surprised if it’s only 11% of Cardiff’s population that is non white.

Cardiff City about 14 years ago spent 3 years giving free tickets to all the ethnic communities and really tried their best, they never really wanted to come along, City promoted it massively and work in the surrounding communities to this day inviting them.

Our club has never been racist and is still not racist, very proud of that

The local schools use our club free of charge to study / learn and use our computers etc .

Cardiff City FC and our fans are more than welcoming to all people from all backgrounds.


TOTALLY TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THE ABOVE / ITS UP TO PEOLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE TO COME ALONG

Spot on Annis our club has NEVER been racist and lets remember last season our club won the EFL Community Club of the year award for Wales & South West of England:

[b]South West & Wales – Cardiff City
The judges were impressed with Cardiff City FC Community Foundation’s continued commitment to providing an inclusive environment for participation across all areas of their work. Its work engaging over 23,000 individuals has seen the organisation recognised in the industry, receiving a number of high-profile accolades this year.
[/b]Chosen for the outstanding impact they have on the people within their communities, Cardiff City are one of six regional winners selected for the programmes they deliver in a number of important areas, including diversity and inclusion, education and health and wellbeing.



Plenty to be proud of OUR club in winning this award.

Total nonsense , the only colour I see at CCS is blue. Thats the way its always been (well nearly)

Cardiff City about 14 years ago spent 3 years giving free tickets to all the ethnic communities and really tried their best, they never really wanted to come along, City promoted it massively and work in the surrounding communities to this day inviting them.

Our club has never been racist and is still not racist, very proud of that

The local schools use our club free of charge to study / learn and use our computers etc .

Cardiff City FC and our fans are more than welcoming to all people from all backgrounds.


TOTALLY TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THE ABOVE / ITS UP TO PEOLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE TO COME ALONG

I do agree obviously that the club and our fan base aren’t racist. I just think it was a bit of a shot in the foot not to engage with a local project designed to try and get more people to come along and support the boys, then made worse by the reasoning that they don’t want to be seen promoting ‘reverse racism’

edit: all it would’ve taken is a tweet or something to raise awareness of the project

was it a tweet they wanted ?

Cardiff City about 14 years ago spent 3 years giving free tickets to all the ethnic communities and really tried their best, they never really wanted to come along, City promoted it massively and work in the surrounding communities to this day inviting them.

Our club has never been racist and is still not racist, very proud of that

The local schools use our club free of charge to study / learn and use our computers etc .

Cardiff City FC and our fans are more than welcoming to all people from all backgrounds.


TOTALLY TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH THE ABOVE / ITS UP TO PEOLE THEMSELVES TO DECIDE TO COME ALONG

Spot on Annis our club has NEVER been racist and lets remember last season our club won the EFL Community Club of the year award for Wales & South West of England:

[b]South West & Wales – Cardiff City
The judges were impressed with Cardiff City FC Community Foundation’s continued commitment to providing an inclusive environment for participation across all areas of their work. Its work engaging over 23,000 individuals has seen the organisation recognised in the industry, receiving a number of high-profile accolades this year.
[/b]Chosen for the outstanding impact they have on the people within their communities, Cardiff City are one of six regional winners selected for the programmes they deliver in a number of important areas, including diversity and inclusion, education and health and wellbeing.



Plenty to be proud of OUR club in winning this award.

Correct Gary

Very very proud of the way our club is now and has been in the past regarding our local communities in working with them

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What is reverse racism? Your either racist or you aint. We used to have hundreds of Koreans and Asians following City home and away because of Kim-Bo-Kyung not so long ago,they loved it . Never seen any racism at the City. If someone did start a racist chant, then they would be shot down by fans immediately and rightly so. Seems to me that certain areas of society hate the fact that violence and discrimination has virtually been wiped out in the "working class thugs" sport that is football. They are jumping on a bandwagon and trying to stir things up, this article included.

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Just a minor point, but if we're going to import the term BIPoC from the States wouldn't the 'Indigenous' part of the acronym literally be referring to those of us of Celtic origin, who I'm pretty sure are white, thus making the whole phrase completely redundant?

Also, there is no actual time spent in the article to assess the percentages in detail, other than the sweeping assertion that 70% of the ethnic population of Wales.

Even if we take that at face value, most estimates of the non-white population in Cardiff are around 11%.

Within that what percentage are likely to be City fans? How many are male and how many female as more boys will like football than girls statistically? What age ranges? What financial background? All of these would need to be understood to see if there was actually a case to be made. Having skim-read the article, it seems no such question has been asked.

Another massive factor could also simply be the fact that a huge number of football fans are introduced to their team by their parents - if a first-generation immigrant from Syria arrives as a Liverpool fan and has a kid here, is he likely to want his son to grow up as a Liverpool fan or a Cardiff fan? What are the chances of an immigrant arriving in Cardiff a fully-fledged Bluebird desperate to fulfil his life-long dream of visiting the CCS?

With a kind-hearted focus, these lads are just naive and have never been challenged on why they think their observations are all some massive injustice when it could just as easily be that there just aren't that many ethnic minorities who actually want to be Cardiff fans.

A less benevolent look at it, and reading between the lines and paying attention to some of the language used in the article, they're just another pair of grifters on the grievance studies gravy train.

I’d be very surprised if it’s only 11% of Cardiff’s population that is non-white.

I was fairly sure of that stat, but I just looked into it to double-check...

According to these two sites
https://www.citypopulation.de/php/uk-wa ... =W38000130
https://worldpopulationreview.com/world ... population

who seem to have the same numbers, the breakdown is:

White: 84.7%
Asian: 8%
Black: 2.4%
Arab: 1.4%
Mixed White and Black African/Caribbean: 1.6%
Mixed White and Asian: 0.7%
Mixed-other: 0.6%
Other ethnic groups: 0.6%

So depending on how mixed white is classified it's somewhere between 11 and 15% based on those numbers.

That said...

having just checked Stats Wales and according to their data which was updated September this year, it is 20%

https://www.citypopulation.de/php/uk-wa ... =W38000130

So you're probably right and I was airing on the lower side of the estimates

Not too sure how much difference it makes to the wider point though, I don't think these lads argument has asked the questions I've asked and has leapt to an assumption that the reason there are few ethnic minorities at City games is all down to prejudice.

That said always the first to hold my hand up if I got something wrong

Just a minor point, but if we're going to import the term BIPoC from the States wouldn't the 'Indigenous' part of the acronym literally be referring to those of us of Celtic origin, who I'm pretty sure are white, thus making the whole phrase completely redundant?

Also, there is no actual time spent in the article to assess the percentages in detail, other than the sweeping assertion that 70% of the ethnic population of Wales.

Even if we take that at face value, most estimates of the non-white population in Cardiff are around 11%.

Within that what percentage are likely to be City fans? How many are male and how many female as more boys will like football than girls statistically? What age ranges? What financial background? All of these would need to be understood to see if there was actually a case to be made. Having skim-read the article, it seems no such question has been asked.

Another massive factor could also simply be the fact that a huge number of football fans are introduced to their team by their parents - if a first-generation immigrant from Syria arrives as a Liverpool fan and has a kid here, is he likely to want his son to grow up as a Liverpool fan or a Cardiff fan? What are the chances of an immigrant arriving in Cardiff a fully-fledged Bluebird desperate to fulfil his life-long dream of visiting the CCS?

With a kind-hearted focus, these lads are just naive and have never been challenged on why they think their observations are all some massive injustice when it could just as easily be that there just aren't that many ethnic minorities who actually want to be Cardiff fans.

A less benevolent look at it, and reading between the lines and paying attention to some of the language used in the article, they're just another pair of grifters on the grievance studies gravy train.

I’d be very surprised if it’s only 11% of Cardiff’s population that is non-white.

I was fairly sure of that stat, but I just looked into it to double-check...

According to these two sites
https://www.citypopulation.de/php/uk-wa ... =W38000130
https://worldpopulationreview.com/world ... population

who seem to have the same numbers, the breakdown is:

White: 84.7%
Asian: 8%
Black: 2.4%
Arab: 1.4%
Mixed White and Black African/Caribbean: 1.6%
Mixed White and Asian: 0.7%
Mixed-other: 0.6%
Other ethnic groups: 0.6%

So depending on how mixed white is classified it's somewhere between 11 and 15% based on those numbers.

That said...

having just checked Stats Wales and according to their data which was updated September this year, it is 20%

https://www.citypopulation.de/php/uk-wa ... =W38000130

So you're probably right and I was airing on the lower side of the estimates

Not too sure how much difference it makes to the wider point though, I don't think these lads argument has asked the questions I've asked and has leapt to an assumption that the reason there are few ethnic minorities at City games is all down to prejudice.

That said always the first to hold my hand up if I got something wrong

Excellent stats work.

Even 20% surprises me.

Me thinks a lot of the population of City Rd and similar roads are not in those surveys.

edit: all it would’ve taken is a tweet or something to raise awareness of the project

That's a fair point.

awareness of what exactly....

Reply FB:


Ian Medler:

All this is making people more racist , we are all the same , if people want to come they will come but going on about it all the time puts it in the front of peoples minds , we are all equal .

they must have gone in lockdown, as i sit/stand in the canton std and we have a few of our friends around us are from ethnic backgrounds so i dont now where they were looking