Former England captain Rio Ferdinand has slammed the racist fans involved in an incident on a train in Paris earlier this week, saying that we may have grown “complacent” when it comes to tackling the issue of racism within football.
Ferdinand, who was extremely vocal on the matter of racism in the sport following allegations that his former England teammate John Terry had racially abused his brother Anton Ferdinand, took to Twitter to vent his frustrations with the events that had taken place place in the Paris metro, which saw a black man being pushed off a train carriage by a crowd of Chelsea fans, before they began chanting “we are racist and that’s the way we like it”.
Ferdinand wrote: “The racist scene on the metro with the Chelsea fans-disgraceful behaviour obviously. But can football change this? Does it have the power?
“Does football want to change this? Do the people in the game that hold the power really want to put the hard yards in to eradicate racism?
“Football has come a long way since the 70’s & 80’s but are we all guilty of becoming a bit complacent?
“Football has done a lot over the years to combat racism… but society has to do more to make change or is there too much hatred in society?”
Also See: Victim of Racist Chelsea Fans Says They Should Face Jail Time
Ferdinand’s comments were made after Chelsea had stated that they would be looking to punish those involved following an investigation from London’s Metropolitan police, though UEFA were not of the same opinion, saying that the incident took place “outside of their remit” and therefore they were not looking to act.
The ‘Kick It Out’ campaign that was set up to battle racism within football has been criticised on a number of occasions for failing to do just that, with punishments for racist behaviour being alarmingly small both on and off the pitch, with fans guilty of both racist verbal and physical attacks often coming under no scrutiny and players being handed meagre fines and short-term bans.
Ferdinand had previously refused to wear a Kick It Out campaign shirt due to their failings as an organisation, and as time passes and it becomes clear just how little the governing bodies of the sport fail to address the subject of racism in the game, he was right to do so.
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