Thursday 19 October 2017 14:07, UK
Kieron Dyer says he has experienced racist comments in his career but insists "extreme" behaviour and "banter" are being phased out of football.
Eniola Aluko, capped 102 times by England, said on Wednesday she felt "vindicated" after an investigation concluded former England Women manager Mark Sampson made remarks towards her and team-mate Drew Spence which were "discriminatory on grounds of race".
Aluko alleged that Sampson told her to be careful her relatives did not bring Ebola to a game at Wembley, and on Wednesday claimed the FA had an agenda to protect Sampson and its own reputation during her evidence to a sport governance inquiry.
Dyer, who is a youth coach at Ipswich, says there is "no chance" his youth players today would be subjected to the type of behaviour players may have suffered even two decades ago when he was a teenager.
Asked if that type of behaviour or comments could be made in his workplace now, Dyer said on The Debate - Live: "Those sorts of racist comments today? No chance, not with the kids, it wouldn't happen.
"But from where we started as kids, and how the game is progressing, I think it is slowly, slowly phasing out of the game. It's nowhere near as extreme from when I was an 18-year-old boy compared to a 35-year-old pro.
"It's getting less and less. The banter does still exist, but it is phasing out, there are more avenues now to report and complain.
"We talk about the hairdryer, I suffered the hairdryer many times as a youth team player. I cannot give my kids [players] the hairdryer, because that would be classed as bullying.
"Parents would be straight on, there would be emails going into the club, complaints, we'd have to have a meeting, have all the officers in. So the game is improving in that way."
Dyer, who came up through the ranks at Ipswich before making 250 appearances for Newcastle and earning 33 England caps, says dressing room banter in football is "extreme".
"Football culture, and the 'banter', the locker room 'banter' is probably the most extreme you can get, compared to society, some of the banter in the changing rooms I think it's really bad.
"Does it cross a line? It didn't to me. I classed it as banter, if there was a joke about a black man, I'd laugh along with it because it's just banter.
"But another black person might take that as offensive, and that is where there is a big problem."
