Lilian Thuram isn’t just any footballer; he’s emerged as the game’s moral conscience, not just in  the French-speaking world, but more broadly.

Recently a packed hall at New York University came to listen to Lilian Thuram talk about racism in football … on a Friday night. Of course we went and got our picture taken (see here) with one of the best players of his generation.

Born in Guadeloupe, Thuram’s single mother took him and his siblings to Paris when he was still a little child. He played club football for Monaco, Parma, Juventus and Barcelona (in that order). He retired from playing in 2008 after being diagnosed with a heart condition. And after he scored 2 goals for France in the 1998 World Cup semi-final against Croatia, no less than Zinedine Zidane told journalists: “You write and write about me and Ronaldo, but you don’t even see that the greatest footballer of all is right in front of you: Lilian Thuram.” He’s also well-read and cites Aimé Cesaire, the Martinique poet and longtime Communist mayor of Fort-de-France, as his hero.

Two days before his NYU appearance he had told the BBC that white players have a responsibility to speak out when black footballers like Yaya Touré (recently the subject of racist chants by fans of Russian club CSKA Moscow) face racist abuse. “As a general rule we always go to the players who are victims of racism, and I think it’s the others who can change things … The action of not saying anything–somehow–it makes you an accomplice.”

When I speak about racism, or Yaya Touré or Kevin-Prince Boateng speak, everyone knows what to expect. But if tomorrow all the white players from Manchester City say that from now on if something happens we will refuse to go back out on to the pitch, and if the players from AC Milan, from Inter Milan and from all the big clubs say the same thing, you’ll soon see that we’ll find a solution.

Thuram’s challenge to the way racism is addressed in football, as in wider society, is profound: The failure of moral leadership against racism from those who are not themselves victims of it constitutes complicity and ensures that racism persists.

We’ve raised this issue before, and also criticized the connected problem of the way the media chooses to represent racism in football. Any report on racist abuse suffered by a footballer is  invariably accompanied by an image of the black player concerned, but that simply isn’t an accurate representation of racism. The abuse they suffer, and not their mere presence on the pitch, is the story and ought to be the focus.

On stage, Thuram was interviewed by the American soccer writer Grant Wahl, who made a go of it and guided what could otherwise have been a tedious affair of platitudes and speechifying, into an interesting conversation. Thuram was in good form and recalled, for example, an incident from his time at Parma when Lazio wanted to sign him and sent their infamously racist Ultras to convince him. They assured Thuram that he would be spared their monkey chants and bananas. In effect, their pitch to him was: you’re so good that we’ll even put our racist abuse on hold if you’ll join us. He signed for Juventus instead.

But we became especially interested when the conversation shifted to the recent spate of racist incidents involving European fans. Wahl asked whether, like Yaya Touré, Thuram would advocate for a boycott by African countries and black players of the 2018 World Cup in Russia if the country failed to deal with the issue.

Some background: A boycott seems justifiable given the wide acceptance of racist behavior among Russian fans combined with the denial by Russian sports authorities/administrators to deal with racism. See the reaction by CSKA’s manager, for example. As for the efficacy of boycotts, the historical record suggest it’s not such a bad idea: Remember when Kwame Nkrumah urged African football associations to boycott the 1966 World Cup in England. Until then the sole African representative at the final tournament had to play the an Asian or European team for a place at the finals. The result was that for Mexico 1970 FIFA Africans teams were assured of one direct slot just for them (which has since been increased to 5). And who can forget how sports boycotts messed with the resolve of South African whites.

But, there are also good reasons why boycotts don’t work. Not everyone you think will or should support it, will comply. At the Olympic Games in Montreal (boycotted by African nations) or Moscow (boycotted by the US and its allies), those attending went on with the business of competing as if nothing had happened. Also, the South African boycotts were undermined by “rebel” teams traveling there or English football players (Kevin Keegan, Roy Hodgson, come to mind) going to play club football there in Apartheid’s leagues. And who is to say some smaller and weaker African footballing nations won’t see the absence of say Côte d’Ivoire (who Yaya Touré plays for) as their chance to get to the World Cup.

But Thuram added his own criteria. He’d only push for sports boycotts or the cancellation of international tournaments hosted by countries who have clear discriminatory policies based on basis of race, ethnicity, origin, and so on. Russia was not officially promoting xenophobia or racism, he argued.

In any case, Thuram argued, it would be better to confront racism directly by going to Russia and playing in front of racist fans.

This is not a bad argument. There’s a historical precedent for it as the American sports historian, Jeffrey Sammons, reminded the NYU audience: At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico African-American athletes on the US team, after campaigning for a boycott, eventually decided on this strategy, using their time on the medal stand to bring attention to US racism. (BTW, there’s a great BBC documentary covering those events. You can watch it here.)

Wahl, though, changed the subject and it seemed settled for the night.

That is until Elliot got up during question time and brought up Israel.

As is well known, Israel has discriminatory and oppressive state policies towards Palestinians. Yet earlier this year it hosted the UEFA Under 21 Championship, in which the best young European players competed. In the lead-up to the tournament, a group of mainly French-speaking African players (and black French players), led by Frédéric Kanouté (he played for Sevilla, Tottenham and Mali), wrote a letter to UEFA protesting the tournament. Elliot wanted to know from “Professor Thuram” whether he supported the campaign, as well as why it was that yet again it was a case of black footballers providing moral leadership in the game.

Thuram seemed to pause, then responded that UEFA should have insisted that matches be played in both Israel and Palestine.

Some clapped. We were disappointed, but realized soon after that we missed what Thuram had done. He had shown up the absurdity of Israel being a member of UEFA. In what sense is Israel part of Europe? He clearly knew that his proposal to insist that tournament games be played in both Israel and Palestine was impossible, since this would have meant holding European championship games within the Asian Football Confederation, of which Palestine is a member.

And what was the substance of our disappointment? We were waiting for Thuram to tell us what we already knew, to offer a  strident condemnation of Israel’s racism. The temptation was to be frustrated by his canny answer. But what right do we have to place a special obligation to combat racism on Thuram? Why should we expect him to provide moral leadership on every issue, when most other prominent players never speak out on any issue at all? One can criticize Thuram, but isn’t it a bit crazy to do so when so many other players are silent?

The best question Thuram got all night was from a 15 year old kid who announced he reckons Thuram committed a foul in the run-up to his second goal against Croatia in 1998 (exactly 15 years ago) and it should have been disallowed.

Thuram: “Watch what you say, young man!”