Racism in football ‘hurts’ efforts to bring in ethnic minority players – Riz Rehman. Racist incidents will ‘hurt’ efforts to bring more players and coaches from ethnic minorities into football at grassroots level, says one of the game’s most prominent Asian figures. Riz Rehman, 36, is the brother of Zesh, the first Asian to play in all four top divisions of the English pyramid. Riz has been appointed chairman of the Surrey FA’s Inclusion Advisory Group. He will outline pathways available to aspiring players and coaches in a bid to increase diversity countywide. He acknowledges the task will not be made easier by the kind of online racism experienced by Marcus Rashford, Tammy Abraham and Paul Pogba amongst others over the past couple of weeks, and the monkey noises directed at Romelu Lukaku when he scored for Inter Milan at Calgiari on Sunday. “It is going to hurt – the way it is said and who says it, it can have an impact,” said Rehman. “What I would say is that Lukaku and Rashford have handled their situations very well. They have said the right things. But it is bound to affect them.”
