Ian Wright reacts to England’s Jess Carter suffering racist abuse at Women’s Euro 2025

Ian Wright maintains “we can’t stop racism” and has urged parents to help make their children resilient after England’s Jess Carter suffered racist abuse during the Women’s Euro 2025.

The Lionesses have decided against taking the knee before their semi-final against Italy following a dramatic penalty shoot-out win over Sweden, arguing that the anti-racism message is not “as strong as it used to be”.

Carter has received widespread support in the camp with Lucy Bronze revealing that there is “anger” and “sadness” in the group after Carter detailed how she had been the target of “vile” and “abhorrent” social media abuse during the championship in Switzerland.

“Everything that the knee represents, justice, equality, I would still take the knee if I was playing today,” Wright said on ITV Sport. “In respect of Jess, the support around her, nothing I can say.

“I've said everything I have had to say, nothing gets any better. What I would say now, prepare your children and family, make them resilient.

“It's going to come. I would urge people to get your kids resilient and build resilience against [racism], it's always going to happen. We can't stop it.”

The Lionesses released a statement, insisting that “we and football need to find another way to tackle racism” while the anti-discrimination group Kick It Out backed the players’ decision and called on social media companies to do more to combat racist abuse.

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While Bronze added: “It was driven by the group - obviously certain individuals more than others. I think it was just the fact that we feel as a collective, is the message as strong as it used to be? Is the message really hitting hard?

“Because to us it feels like it's not if these things are still happening to our players in the biggest tournaments of their lives. It's about putting another statement out there to say, it's something that still is a problem.

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“It’s something that still needs to be put right. More needs to be done in football, more needs to be done in society. What that is right now as an individual, I don't exactly know.”

England manager Sarina Wiegman told the BBC that her players decided to stop taking the knee because its impact was “not good enough” while defender Alex Greenwood said the anti-racism gesture has "lost its purpose".

Lionesses midfielder Georgia Stanway said: “It’s just to change it up. We felt like the knee was just a little bit repetitive, we felt like it’s come to a point where the knee isn’t doing what we wanted it to do, so now our decision is to stand and hopefully that will bring up more conversation, more change and hopefully get the topic [spoken about].”