CLD co-signed a letter by BC Project to the Chairman of the Football Association

The letter sent on 21 November 2014 read as follows:

"Wigan Athletic Chairman Dave Whelan recently made comments regarding the use of the word

"chink".

We, the UK Chinese community, would like to refute the claim that there is nothing bad about

calling a person of Chinese ethnicity a "chink" - this is at best nonsense, and at worst racist.

Mr. Whelan tried to draw a parallel between using the term "chinks" in relation to Chinese

people and using the term "Brits" to refer to British people. To draw such a parallel is ignorant

and offensive as it fails to understand the nature of racism and belittles the experiences of those

who have suffered racism.

Racism and discrimination is still a part of everyday life for many UK Chinese. Comments such

as Mr. Whelan's only serve to proliferate and normalise the continued use of discriminatory and

racist language.

We note that Mr. Whelan has since offered a half-hearted apology to the Chinese community

for his remarks, and he hopes that we will accept this apology. Unfortunately, the damage of his

comments has already been done.

We are pleased to hear that the Football Association is to launch an investigation into these

remarks. If we are to truly stamp racism out of football, and society more generally, we cannot

allow comments from people in senior positions to go unpunished. We would be extremely

disappointed if a fitting punishment isn't administered following the FA investigation."

Please also see coverage in the Chinese press here