Give racism the red card

Incidents of racism and racial abuse in football continue to be common. In this lesson, students will review vocabulary, then read an article about racism in football and the 'Show racism the red card' and 'Kick racism out of football' campaigns. Finally, they will discuss their own ideas for anti-racism campaigns in different contexts.

Learning outcomes

All learners will:

• find out more about racism in football
• develop vocabulary
• practise their reading skills
• develop their speaking skills in a discussion.

Some learners will:

• create their own anti-racism campaign poster.

Age and level

13–17 years old and adult (B1+)

Time

60–90 minutes (depending on optional follow-up poster activity)

Materials

• Lesson plan
• Give racism the red card student worksheets
• Presentation

Lead-in (5 minutes)

• Show learners the image from the website. Ask students what they think is happening. When do footballers get red cards? What do they think 'Give racism the red card' means? 
• Put learners into pairs/small groups and ask them to discuss the questions on the worksheet. Give them 5 minutes to discuss the questions and then ask for feedback.  

  • Are you a football fan? Why (not)? Why do you think football is such a popular sport around the world? 

  • Have you ever been to a football match? Can you describe what it was like? 

  • Have you seen or heard about any examples of racism in football? 

Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• Tell learners they are going to read an article that includes the vocabulary from the worksheet. Ask learners to match the vocabulary items with the definitions below. This can be done in pairs. Check answers and pronunciation. 

         Answers: 1. f, 2. b, 3. a, 4. d, 5. g, 6. e 7. c 

Before reading: discussion (10 minutes)

• Learners can work in the same groups or change partners for the discussion activity. Encourage learners to expand on and give reasons for their opinions.
• Get feedback and write up any good use of language or errors that you would like to highlight on the board.

Reading (10 minutes) 

• Learners work individually to read the text and match the paragraph headings. Ask them to underline anything they don't understand in the text at this point. 

• Check answers: 1. c Part of the game, 2. e Speaking up against abuse, 3. b Punishment against racism, 4. d Anti-racist campaigns, 5. a Not just men.

• Ask learners if they are surprised by anything in the text and if they think the same problems exist in their own country. 

• You could show this short video clip of Vinícius Júnior, a Brazilian player, talking about racial abuse he faced while playing for Real Madrid. Ask the learners which adjectives they can use to describe how he feels: https://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2024/mar/25/i-have-to-keep-fighting-vinicius-junior-breaks-down-in-tears-discussing-racism-video 

After reading: group discussion (15 minutes)

• Now put students into groups of three or four. Tell them they are going to discuss some questions related to the text and the topic. Set a time limit (7–10 minutes). Ask learners to take notes, and encourage each group to think of at least three or four ideas for each question and to justify their answers. They should be ready to share their ideas with another group at the end of the task. Monitor and help with ideas and language where necessary. 

• Regroup learners into new groups so that there is a representative from each discussion – An easy way to do this is to give each member of the group a letter (A, B, C, C) and then ask all the As to form a group, Bs another group, etc. Ask learners to explain the ideas from their discussion to their new group. 

• At the end, ask for feedback from each discussion.

Follow-up (optional) (30–40 minutes)

• As an optional follow-up, ask learners to choose one of the contexts from the worksheet (or another idea if they have one). They can work together or individually for homework to come up with an anti-racism campaign for that context. They should design a logo and a slogan and make a poster to present to the class in the next lesson. Their campaign should include some ideas for actions like the ones they discussed in class. Learners could vote for the best campaign. 

• Posters could be done on paper, as a PowerPoint presentation or using a tool like Canva or similar.

By Kirsteen Donaghy and Cath McLellan, adapted from an original lesson by Clare Lavery.