Maybe the racists tweets following the England final with Italy were a gift? I know this will sound very controversial, but hear me out please.
Firstly it has meant a massive public outcry towards the racist abuse targeted at these wonderful football players who stepped up for their team and country, an event they will never forget for the rest of their lives!
It has meant that comments flowed from Royalty, Government and ordinary citizens up and down the country, the country that calls itself England. My mother was brown, she was from India and my father was white, he was from The Netherlands, I am sure she faced racism in The Netherlands but I was just not conscious of it. Can you imagine my Mum and Dad getting married in the days when mixed marriages were just not seen? What must it have been like for them.
Anyway back to England and the football. With the public outcry, maybe this country will finally do something about educating youngsters in school to be more inclusive in their views of others, regardless of colour or creed. After all that is where it starts, the mind gets conditioned at a very young age and carries on into adulthood. And yes there are parents up and down the country that behave appallingly in front of their kids too, it's not just about education either.
Many corporates are publishing posters to say they stand with the 3 guys who missed the penalties, 23-year-old Marcus Rashford, 21-year-old Jadon Sancho and 19-year-old Bukayo Saka.
Gareth Southgate quite rightly is taking full responsibility for choosing or accepting their voluntary nomination.
But are corporates just trying to show they have integrity, when you and I know they really don't, they are very much profit motivated. But what are they actually doing in terms of stopping the racist trolls? Will they know who they are, will they stop serving them, will they close their bank accounts, will they audit what they are up to, will they close their social media accounts, sack them from their jobs and many more actions they could take and probably won't.
Society has a lot to learn but I am hopeful, of course I am, somehow getting these three guys to take the penalties and for them to miss them means that we are more focussed than ever to take racist abuse more seriously in England and the whole of the UK and maybe we could be that example for the world too.
Come on England!