Bobbi - // Chris I am anything but racist but I really don't see this as such a massive big deal //
In the bigger scheme of things, it's not a massive big deal, but this is the FA we're talking about.
Football as a culture, and therefore under the leadership of the FA, is an organisation that is the utter epitome of a racist sexist and homophobic brotherhood.
Of course, it is trying to change, very slowly but I am sure you can recall, as I can, the times when the first black player played for a national team, and that was news.
In what other organisation would a person's skin colour generate a news item like that? It shouldn't be even a matter for comment, but for football, it was a big deal, and news, because football is about as racist an organisation as it's possible to be.
We can park the homophobia that is still utterly rampant in football in 2020, simply by pausing for a moment, and asking ourselves how many Premier League players are out as gay? Not how many are gay, because the simply law of numbers says there are some - but how many have ever come out and said so publicly?
Back to the race issue then.
To its credit, the FA has invested millions of pounds in addressing in the intractable racism that is in football's DNA - and it is making progress, slowly, but progress is there.
And more importantly, the FA makes a massive noise on a regular basis about just how much it s trying to address racism - it comes up all the time - look at Ron Atkinson, respected pundit, booted into obscurity for an off-mic remark about a black player that was picked up anyway.
So you have an organization investing millions in tying to alter mindsets about prehistoric attitudes to the colour of a player's skin, and making a massive noise about it on a daily basis and then ...
the leader of the organisation, the guy at the top, the place where the proverbial buck stops, whom you would think you could rely on to set an example - uses a term like 'coloured' to refer to a black player.
THAT is why it is such a big deal.