A new song for Euro 2024 launched by footballing star Emile Heskey aims to combat the “vile” racist abuse suffered by England players after the last European championship.
It’s OUR Team, by up and coming stars CreezOn and Ke4T and producer Toddla T, calls on the England squad to “bring home the silverware and send racism packing”.
Launched by Heskey, who has 62 caps for England, the song addresses the racism suffered by Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka and Jadon Sancho after England lost to Italy in the Euro 2020 final, and demands it never happens again.
Heskey said: “I am backing this song because it’s catchy, positive and the people involved want to bring the nation together and bring the trophy home.
“England is our team, all of us, no matter our race. We cannot let the vile racists win; so let us all get behind our England team. Come on England.”
Toddla T, CreezOn and Ke4T added: “As soon as Black Footballers Partnership brought us the song idea we jumped on it, and within 48 hours we put together this beautifully produced track It’s OUR Team.
“We all grew up in a diverse England – black, brown and white people playing footy together on beat-up pitches, jumping on each other as goals went in and suffering the misery of too many losses.
“England is our team. We hope the message of this track brings people together and helps drive the racists away from our beautiful game. Come on England.”
The song lyrics specifically name-check Rashford, Saka and Sancho and also call for more black managers in the sport.
The lyrics say: “Dear fans, we’ve got a responsibility to change the game of positivity. It’s deeper than kicking the ball, together we’re collectively writing history.”
It continues: “Dear England, three lions on the T-shirt. Gotta stand up for the ones who roar… Stay proud of the game, stay proud of the players, don’t matter about the race or score.”
Addressing racial inequality off the pitch, the lyrics add: “Dear clubs, we wanna see more black managers.
“Black managers are 41% more likely to be fired, if there ain’t a problem how come them stats ain’t adding up?
“There’s too much fighting and that ain’t right, over skin colour, man will fight but search up a cartoon picture of a football and the football’s black and white.”
Delroy Corinaldi, executive director of the Black Footballers Partnership, which devised the idea for the song, added: “This banger of a track aims to help deliver on Gareth Southgate’s 2020 words: this united, ethnically diverse and talented England squad leads the way in bringing people together and what happened in the 2020 final against Italy is not what our England is about.
“As Jude Bellingham said: We lose together, we win together. We cannot let racism rear its head whenever we try to bring a long awaited trophy home. We are always better together.”
It’s OUR Team is out now.