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Raheem Sterling Media Treatment
Raheem Sterling Media Treatment
However, only one paper the Sun showed an image of England’s top goal scorer Raheem Sterling, who scored the opener in that game. The Metro, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, the Times, the Independent, Daily Mail, and all featured images of Harry Kane celebrating his goal.
The Jamaican born footballer has been England’s best player throughout the tournament, being the only England team member to score for the three lions until Kane’s goal. Before the tournament started many among the British press were calling for Sterling to be dropped and the likes of Jack Grealish and Phil Foden to take his place. However, Southgate stuck with the Manchester City forward and has been rewarded with key performances from the player.
Sterling has consistently had to push past criticism from the press ever since his Premier League career began. In 2015 he was called “greedy” by the Mirror during his contract negotiations, the Sun also called him a “troubled youth” and a “footie idiot” in tweets in 2016, he’s been mocked for eating pasties from Greggs, shopping in Poundland and using EasyJet and for having a £50k Merceded and Bentleys worth £100,000s. Whether he spends the money he earns or behaves like any other young man from North London the press has ridiculed him.
More personally, the Sun called him the “prem rat of the Caribbean” in 2017 after he was photographed on holiday with a female friend. This same paper contacted anti-gun groups to see if the player should be banned from playing in the World Cup due to a gun tattoo he got on his leg, the tattoo serving as a tribute to his father who was shot dead in Jamaica when Sterling was two years old. After racist suffering racist at a Chelsea game in 2018 Sterling spoke out and called out the media for years of vitriol directed at him. He pointed out the disparity between the media’s treatment of black and white players, noting how a young Phil Foden was praised for buying his mum a multi-million-pound house while he and another young black player were chastised for doing the same thing.
He wrote that this difference “helps fuel racism” and called for the press to “give all players an equal chance.”
Yet it seems the press still isn’t willing to give him the treatment he deserves. All he can do is continue to perform at his best, scoring goals and flying down the wing and hope his consistent performances and upstanding behaviour will make some in the press change their minds.
