Three Lions or Three Scapegoats: Racial Hate Crime in the Wake of the Euro 2020 Final in London

Abstract

Does (under-)performance of athletes from stigmatized racial groups influence the incidence of racial hate crimes? We consider the case of the English national football team during the 2020 European Football Championship and analyze whether the performance of black players during the final at Wembley affected the number of racial hate crimes committed in London. The three English players who missed their penalties in the final are all black English players. Combining insights from (displaced) frustration-aggression and scapegoat theory, we argue that the frustration of losing the final resulted in violence directed at racial minority group members in London. Our findings show that the lost final triggered a 30 percent increase in racial hate crimes in the weeks following the event. The immediate impact was larger in boroughs with higher pre-event levels of racial hate crimes, indicating a galvanizing instead of a mobilizing exacerbation of this trigger event.

Keywords

• hate crimes
• intergroup relations
• scapegoat theory
• prejudice
• euro 2020