Dreaming the Impossible: Can We Ever Have a Non-Racial Sports World?

The #blacklivesmatter movement has put prejudice under the microscope and made everyone examine the issue of race from all angles – Dreaming the Impossible is the definitive book of racism in British sports which answers the question as to whether we can get to a truly non-racial sports world.The British, who are rightly, proud of the sports the world plays, are now having to come to terms with the dark past of racism in sport. This conscious and unconscious racism has for decades blighted the lives of talented black and Asian talent and prevented them from fulfilling their potential as competitors, coaches and administrators. In Formula One, despite Lewis Hamilton’s stellar achievements barely one per cent of the 40,000 people employed in the sport come from ethnic minority backgrounds. In football, Britain’s premier sport, the number of managers in the professional game remains pitifully small. And in cricket Azeem Rafiq’s testimony to the Commons select committee has exposed the scandal of racist prejudice faced by Asian cricketers in the game.Drawing on his extensive knowledge of sport and his own personal experience of racism Mihir Bose examines the way racism has affected black and Asian sportsmen and women and how attitudes have evolved over the past fifty years.