By Mark Baber
May 15 – FIFA and UEFA have reacted with dismay at the weak sanctions employed by national Football Associations in the recent cases of racist incidents, demanding the sanctions regime which they have put in place is applied.
The Spanish football federation fined La Liga club Villarreal just €12,000 after a banana was thrown at Barcelona’s Dani Alves and this was followed by Italian club Atalanta being fined €40,000 following a similar incident during a Serie A match on Sunday.
Jeffrey Webb, the chairman of FIFA’s Anti-Racism and Discrimination Task Force, said: “You saw the incident that happened in La Liga and of course you’ve seen the punishment, which is very, very unfortunate, I thought it was very disrespectful, to be honest with you.”
Webb insisted that the footballing authorities “have passed new regulations which give opportunities for relegation, point reductions and much harsher fines than monetary,” and insisted these sanctions should be implemented as they would be far more effective than the fines imposed which represented little more than a “slap on the wrist.”
On Monday FIFA President Sepp Blatter turned to social media to express his views, tweeting “Racism, and games stopped/abandoned due to acts of hooliganism. Each Federation needs to act. Sanctions are available & HAVE to be applied.”
Further support for strict sanctions came from both the UEFA Executive Committee and the Professional Football Strategy Council (PFSC) which comprises representatives from UEFA’s member associations, clubs (ECA), leagues (EPFL) and players (FIFPro).
The two bodies issued a joint call for “the responsible bodies to implement the strong measures that were approved by all UEFA member associations at the 2013 Ordinary UEFA Congress in London), whereby incidents of a racist nature must be punished by partial stadium closure for a first such occurrence, and by full stadium closure and a fine of €50,000 for a second such offence by supporters.”
The two bodies also stressed the importance of a strict application of the so-called ‘three-step procedure’, which empowers referees to abandon a match in case of racist behaviour by supporters.
UEFA President Michel Platini also expressed his outrage, saying: “It is unacceptable for anyone to be racially insulted or abused inside our stadiums, and we simply cannot tolerate it. We call on all our member associations and stakeholders to apply a zero tolerance policy against all forms of discrimination and to follow the UEFA guidelines in sanctioning all guilty parties. Our statutes were recently amended to ensure all UEFA member associations adopt effective policies to eradicate racism.”
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