From WhatsApp idea to global campaign: The inside story of how #Enough took off

It started with Danny Rose saying he can’t wait to see the back of football.

The Professional Footballers’ Association didn’t simply want to write yet another statement, knowing it would mean nothing more than platitudes. So suggestions and schemes were bounced around between staff members of the equalities and diversity team in a WhatsApp group — where all the best ideas germinate these days, don’t they?

Along with Rose’s powerfully honest, cutting words, the PFA had been receiving an increasing number of calls from players complaining about the racism which has slowly been retaking a grip on the game in recent years and wanted to do something.

Training ground for racists

It was decided that social media was a great place to start: where better than the modern-day racists’ training ground, where they can try sharing their first few words of hatred and discover that actually nothing will be done about it? Next stop: a football stadium near you.

Read more: Premier League stars plan 24 hour social media boycott in stand against racism in football

Part of the criticism levelled at the PFA is that, as the players’ union, they have not done enough to mobilise their members to take action. Yet say what you like about their outgoing chief executive Gordon Taylor — and there has been much criticism — he has assembled a diverse, young team at the PFA with strong connections to the players, and this looks set to represent a new direction for the body. It will likely not have gone unnoticed at the Football Association and the Premier League that the players’ union are baring teeth.

In the early stages, a week before the 24-hour social media boycott took place, I was asked my opinion on whether I thought it was a good idea. I thought it was excellent: something that required only a few leading players to get behind before it could snowball, with an easily adoptable message and clear image. The best messages are the simple ones: #Enough.

It conveyed that the players have had enough with the racism they are being subjected to on a weekly basis — in stadiums packed with television cameras, tens of thousands of people, stewards supposedly watching closely, yet still with very little seemingly being done to stop it.

Beckham and Bieber backing

A proper strategy document was created five days before launch, outlining the aims and the objectives and how it could work. At this stage there were still fears that players would not get behind the boycott en masse, rendering it ineffectual. They did not know, of course, that by late afternoon on Friday, David Beckham would be posting his support to his 55.2 million Instagram followers, and the message would make its way on to Justin Bieber’s Instagram story, reaching 109m people. Nor that the #Enough campaign would be discussed across America, and even in Peru.

The PFA team hit their phones: Simone Pound (head of equalities), Jason Lee (education executive), Fabrice Muamba (delegation liaison), Terry Angus (community executive), Bobby Barnes (deputy chief executive). Plenty of others, including the communications team, played key roles. Watford striker Troy Deeney and Leicester City defender Wes Morgan were the first two Premier League players on board. There was relief that with two Premier League captains and, potentially, two Premier League dressing rooms behind the campaign, many more would follow. Wycombe Wanderers striker Adebayo Akinfenwa was the first to back it from the Football League, another well-known figure — famously the strongest man in football.

By the time the boycott began, Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha, Manchester United’s Chris Smalling, Tottenham’s Rose and Arsenal forward Danielle Carter had agreed to take part. More strong names to inspire support across men’s and women’s football.

The Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz

In the end, leading players across the game came together: Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne, Jesse Lingard, Marcus Rashford, Gareth Bale. I could fill the rest of this column with them all.

Some people attacked the campaign, for not being strong enough strike action, or that nobody would care. You have to shrug. They were missing the point that this is only intended as the beginning, its purpose a warning shot.

Some people racially abused the players taking a stand. Instead of allowing this merely to add more fuel to the bonfire of racists, the PFA are collecting as much evidence as possible and using it to fuel change. They are planning to take it to the social media companies and demand action.

There is precedent for action actually taken elsewhere. In Germany, for example, they implemented the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz in 2017 to combat the rise of hatred online — forcing social media companies to delete offensive posts within 24 hours of them being reported or face huge fines of up to €50m. In early 2017, Germany’s then minister of justice Heiko Maas evaluated the problem and discovered that while 90 per cent of hate comments were deleted from YouTube, only 39 per cent were removed from Facebook and a staggering one per cent from Twitter. The Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz remains a highly controversial law, with critics arguing it contravenes the right to freedom of speech.

One former senior figure at Twitter told me last year that the company did not want to adopt word censors, citing the example that some people used the the N-word in their normal speech and it was not intended offensively.

Agree or disagree, tackling the problem will be hugely complex. For footballers the message is simple: they have had #Enough.