Premier League and the FA are set to work on introducing and improving a number of processes in an attempt to tackle racism in football.
Racism has always been a prevalent topic in football over the years. But, the recent upsurge in incidents related to racism in English football and football in general, has seen the Premier League governing body come up with an extensive plan to cut down such incidents and tackle racism in football, according to a Daily Mail report.
While Italy is often recognised as the most active league in terms of racist incidents, the 2018-19 campaign has seen varied incidents occur within English football. Raheem Sterling was allegedly racially abused at Stamford Bridge while Millwall fans were caught on video doing a racist chant in their 3-2 win over Everton in the FA Cup.
Tottenham have also been under the cosh. While there were reports of Son Heung-min being racially abused by his own fans recently, a Spurs fan was banned for throwing a banana peel at Arsenal supertstar Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during the North London derby.
Among the many steps, one is to introduce a new programme in order to increase the recruitment of referees from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic groups (BAME). The Premier League is also looking into the prospect of partnering up with British Transport Police to tighten the scrutiny and fasten the process of identification and delivering punishment to the suspects.
While the players involved in all of the incidents mentioned above that occurred in the Premier League have not been affected, we have seen previous cases of stars being seriously affected by racist chants and incidents.
Mario Balotelli has encountered it several times and was seen crying after coming off during his time in Italy. Kalidou Koulibaly’s was a recent incident, which saw the player react badly to the chants, with Carlo Ancelotti even claiming that he would not be afraid to instruct his Napoli players to come off the pitch immediately should the incident re-occur in the future.
The plans will also include setting up of educational campaigns in co-operation with the FA and the English Football League.
The steps are likely to be welcomed by fans worldwide, with racism an evil that needs to be cracked down. Football is all about passion and while people do go overboard sometimes, there should be no room for racism in this beautiful sport.
