Alex Reid looks at whether the once ever-present appearance of English clubs in the later stages of the Champions League is set to become a thing of the past
Craig Dobson looks at QPR's decision to sack Neil Warnock and replace him with Mark Hughes
Andy Pakes previews this Sunday afternoon clash in the first edition of Game of the Week for 2012
Dave Hughes tells us about his sporting hero, Wes Morgan
The problem is that racism is an issue in football. In fact, I’d go about as far as saying that it is possibly the biggest social problem that the game has to overcome on an international level. We have seen incentives such as the ‘kick racism out of football’ campaign do so much work to try and educate both players and fans about the dangers of racism within the game, and up until about a month ago you’d have said that huge strides have been made.
All of a sudden we see allegations of racism on the pitch against both John Terry and Luiz Suarez and the whole issue is put straight into the spotlight again. What was said by these players in order for Anton Ferdinand and Patrice Evra to file complaints of racism we will probably never know, but it is almost immaterial. The two incidents have served to show us that racism hasn’t gone from English football, both on the pitch and off it. There is no such thing as casual racism, and therefore any allegations should be taken with the upmost seriousness.
Enter Sepp Blatter. By blatantly denying that there are on field problems with racism in the game in which he holds the most powerful governing position, he has undermined the whole issue and all the work that many people have put in to ensure that the right steps are taken to eradicating racism in football. To say that on field allegations of racism can be sorted with the shake of a hand suggests that he feels that the problem is schoolboy like and that players should just forget about it and move on. All this coming from the man who claimed to be the driving force behind taking the World Cup to South Africa, a place where racism was at the heart of politics for far too long. Again, I’d be talking about the smack of irony if the issue wasn’t so serious.
We can’t trivialise racism, simple as that. Football needs to stand up and deal with its social issues, not cover them up and pretend that everything is ok. It is becoming clearer by the day that Blatter is one of the last dinosaurs of world football, and perhaps the sooner he ‘becomes extinct’ from the game the better.
Oh, and as for that handshake? Well I’d think twice, put it that way.
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