Mark this date down in your calendars as it will be probably the first and last time that State of the Game has any praise for Sepp Blatter and his FIFA cronies but I want to stay as positive about this news as possible so here goes: FIFA have introduced some of the toughest measures since their inception in the worldwide fight against racism.

After outrage around Europe following high profile incidents such as the Spanish fans monkey chants at England’s black players and Samuel Eto’o’s recent problems with the racist chanting from Real Zaragoza fans, FIFA have decided to get tough and bring in disciplinary sanctions which will finally put real pressure on clubs to root out the sections of their support that are carrying out this disgusting crime.

With punishments ranging from match suspensions to points deductions (three points for a first offence, six points for a second offence and best of all, RELEGATION for a third offence), clubs are really going to have to make the stamping out of racism a number one priority with FIFA no longer willing to turn a blind eye to a problem that seems to have been on the rise again over the last few years in European football.

Blatter is talking the talk and while threatening to suspend national associations frominternational football for two years for failing to uphold the new laws, he may finally be ready and willing to walk the walk as well. I can’t say that it’s before time either as the cowardly, moronic attitudes of racist fans and the lenient “punishments ” imposed on them and their clubs over the last couple of years, particularly in Spain, have made my blood boil. There is no room in football or society for racist behaviour and if FIFA are about to make their efforts as hardline as possible to eradicate this scourge of the game then State of the Game are fully behind them.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 17th, 2006 at 4:18 pm and is filed under FIFA. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.