With his Instagram post after the Chelsea game, Raheem Sterling scored two goals with one shot. He called out the dehumanising abuse he endured at Stamford Bridge while also inviting us to think about the kind of societal racism that is too subtle to shout in your face over a hoarding at a football ground.

At the micro level there is urgent work to be done. Police and Chelsea football club must determine whether those fulminating ‘fans’ used the word ‘black’ in their tirade at Sterling, who, in an England shirt, would doubtless be cheered by these hypocrites as a good English lad. The rule of law is the starting point - if there is sufficient evidence that racist language was a factor. Then it falls to football and the rest of us to confront the harder part.

First, to take Sterling’s point, there is a belief on his part that the reporting of the lives of black footballers too often reflects an underlying prejudice which denies the right of black people to be as rich and successful as white ones. The gist of his argument is that black players are portrayed as blingy and extravagant while white colleagues are framed as conscientious and family orientated. This is a reasonable point to make, but with a caveat. There can be no get-out for individual racists, no line of self-exoneration that says: ‘I have no free will, no agency, a newspaper website made me do it.’