Dave Kitson’s PFA manifesto should not see him escape scrutiny for his problematic views

Dave Kitson has spent over a year plotting to succeed Gordon Taylor as the Professional Footballers’ Association’s chief executive, canvassing opinions from players, managers and officials in order to design a “manifesto to rescue it.”

It would have been exceptional due diligence if the former Reading striker kicked off his crusade by sitting down with Raheem Sterling and Tyrone Mings.

After all, his 10-point plan of reform includes an investigation as to “whether BAME players feel they are being properly supported, amid continued evidence of racism in the game.”

Let’s rewind. On 11 December 2018, Mings was due to appear on Talksport for an interview that had long been pencilled in.

It was sharply cancelled when the centre-back watched a video clip of Kitson, a guest on the radio station, suggesting Sterling had invited relentless racist abuse due to his flashy Instagram posts.

“I’m meant to be doing an interview with Talksport tomorrow which won’t be happening,” Mings tweeted. “I’m fed up of broadcasting channels who have a huge voice allowing this sort of sh*t to be said.

“Like someone or dislike them, there is no ‘but’ or grey area when it comes to racism.”

Kitson’s opinion was delivered a day after Sterling spotlighted the media’s role in fuelling discrimination.

The Manchester City star was called a “f*****g black c***” during the first half of his side’s 2-0 defeat at Chelsea, but didn’t “expect no better” given the negative framing of players of colour by the press in contrast to their white peers.

To showcase this, Sterling highlighted two Daily Mail articles about his teammates on Instagram. The first on Tosin Adarabioyo was written under the headline: ‘Young Manchester City footballer, 20, on £25,000 a week splashes out on mansion on market for £2.25m despite having never started a Premier League match’. The other was on Phil Foden and simply pointed out the midfielder ‘buys new £2m home for his mum’.

Back to Kitson then. “I do believe that players make themselves a target,” he said when reacting to the incident at Stamford Bridge. “Why Raheem Sterling? There are other black players on the pitch, every single week.

“I just think that we have a duty of care to ourselves as footballers, to be a little bit careful with social media, and the way we portray ourselves. Jealousy is an awful thing amongst the human race.

“I trawled through Raheem Sterling’s Instagram feed this morning to find that a lot of what he put on in his early days has now been deleted, and it was, ‘look at my cars, look at my house, look at this bathroom, look at this, look at that, look at me.’ And that’s going to antagonise people.”

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A quick trawl through Kitson’s Instagram feed at the time was quite illuminating over how careful he was on the platform and how he portrayed himself.

Amid a flood of posh holiday snaps was one of him sitting between two Ferraris with the caption: ‘Day 3 of retirement. Starting to get bored.’

It was very ‘look at this, look at that, look at me’ and many of those posts have now been deleted. So Dave, why Raheem Sterling?

It is absolutely baffling that Kitson was not confronted with that question when launching his candidacy on Thursday.

He was allowed to shrug off such a problematic viewpoint by the most prominent media outlets, who offered him a platform without addressing his comments on Sterling.

The Daily Mail published his manifesto and 101 questions for the PFA to answer, six of which ironically centred around racism.

Chris Sutton’s column in the newspaper trumpeted Kitson’s move for Taylor’s position, while also making zero mention of it.

Sky Sports interviewed the 40-year-old, who said the reaction to his decision to run for the role was “universally positive… I’ve got their respect and I’ve got their support. At all levels.”

Again, there was an airbrushing of Kitson’s troubling take that players make themselves targets for racist abuse. He was not as lucky to escape the criticism of former footballers, with Ian Wright, Steven Reid, Frank Sinclair and Michael Gray among those holding him to account.

It is not just his moronic reading of the Sterling situation that will jar with the constituents he seeks to represent.

Kitson has previous for stereotyping and talking down the wives and girlfriends of players, even wading into the Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy row.

The PFA and Taylor haven’t been particularly palatable, but we can’t pretend that Kitson is the tonic. A man that cannot address his own mistakes is certainly not the right one to implement a manifesto to overhaul an organisation.