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12 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JUNE 2020 OPINION IT'S only halfway through the year – and there has been pre- cious little live sport to speak of in 2020 thanks to coronavi- rus – but already the odds are shortening on who will win one of the most prestigious titles in British sport: the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year. Mar- cus Rashford may be one of the brightest young talents to grace Manchester United's hallowed Old Trafford stadium, but it's not just his skill and eye for goal that are prompting pundits and fans alike to predict great things for the 22-year-old forward. As the English Premier League resumes after a three- month hiatus, football fans across the country are keenly waiting to see how their teams will perform after such a pro- longed period in isolation. But as players take to the pitch with the message "Black Lives Matter" emblazoned in place of their names on the backs of their shirts, much of the con- versation revolves around how Rashford took on the country's government and won. The young black player, one of five children raised by a sin- gle mother in a working-class Manchester suburb, forced Boris Johnson, the prime min- ister, to make an embarrassing U-turn on its decision not to provide Britain's poorest chil- dren with free school meals over the summer. As the face of the #maketheUturn campaign, Rashford is now a hero to the families of the 1.3 million chil- dren who would otherwise have gone without. It's a tale that provides a glimpse into two particularly complex, intertwining and in- cendiary social characteristics in modern Britain: race and class. Getting the ball rolling English football's so-called "Project Restart" is not without controversy – its roll-out comes amid concerns over what many fear is a premature reopening of social, cultural and economic life. The virus persists, as does continuing uncertainty around its spread, control and ongoing threat. In the UK, this is exac- erbated by a lack of trust in of- ficial policy, thanks to what the majority of Britons see as the government's disastrous han- dling of the crisis. Some footballers have ex- pressed misgivings about re- turning to the pitch, including a number of black and minor- ity ethnic players mindful of the heightened dangers linked to ethnicity with this virus. While the Premier League has invested in testing and safety apparatus that partially alle- viate such concerns, ongoing shortages in such protections outside of football's elite bub- ble – including much-heralded "key workers" in hospitals and care homes – provides a jarring context. It's difficult to overstate the social and cultural importance of football in Britain. Described romantically as "the people's game", football is both a prod- uct and reflection of wider so- cial forces. We need only look at the past week to see how football retains deep roots in the national consciousness. Culture wars The week before Project Re- start got underway with the first games in the Premier League, groups of football fans de- scended on London, ostensibly to defend public monuments, such as the statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, from what they feared was the destructive intent of Black Lives Matter protesters. Though football in the UK has its sectarian divides and distinct national allegiances, English football cul- ture has tradition- ally tended to shy away from overtly political affilia- tions or rheto- ric. Likewise, the players, seeming- ly well-schooled in saying as little as possible of substance, have not been known for opinions that veer too far outside football matters. But, in recent years, the po- litical powder kegs of terror- ism, immigration, austerity and Brexit have provided the Marcus Rashford, Black Lives Matter and a British premier who is out of his league Chris Porter is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Manchester Metropolitan University Chris Porter Rashford's leadership has for many filled a vacuum left by the government's handling of the pandemic and highlighted at best an indifference to issues of race and class Marcus Rashford: forced Boris Johnson to make an embarrassing U-turn on school meals