Lets be honest, racism isn’t new in soccer, especially in Europe. It seems like every season there are teams who’s fans are caught chanting racist remarks, making monkey noises from the stands, or throw bananas out into the pitch.

But this type of treatment isn’t just for the lesser known stars, high profile players have been target. Former Barcelona star defender Daniel Alves, from Brazil, had a banana thrown towards him from the stands in 2014, where he responded by eating the banana while continuing play. Other stars include Italy’s Mario Balotelli who has been the victim of several racist abuses during his career in Italy against other clubs, in England playing for Liverpool, and Spanish fans during Euro 2012 competition with Italy, Portugal’s young ace Renato Sanches last season.

With Russia hosting the world cup in 2018, FIFA ending their end racism program, citing how the task was fulfilled, is a big head scratcher, especially to Manchester City’s Yaya Toure who too was a victim of racist abuse by Russian fans in 2013.

“Are Fifa being complacent ahead of a World Cup in Russia?” The former Ivory Coast international added: “It will be the fans and players that suffer if Fifa do not get this right. “When I received the letter telling me the Fifa taskforce was to be discontinued I was very disappointed. “The letter listed the good work that had been carried out as a result of the taskforce’s advice and recommendations. “So my question is, after failing to deal with racism sufficiently for decades, why stop when something is beginning to work?”

 

 

 

Punishment are usually small fines and playing behind closed doors, where clubs do take a small financial hit. But it keeps happening, and the media seems to ignore it. So much focus is on America and how racist it is, with what seems to be an endless 24/7 hour news cycle of racist cops and how racism is still in this country, athletes are kneeling down during the anthem in protest, teachers stomping on American flags to show students you can protest, but where is the same outrage for the level of racism in Europe towards black athletes? imagine of someone threw a banana towards 49ers Collin Kaepernick what that outrage would be?