FA racism warning

GARETH SOUTHGATE’S England stars will be warned that they face the World Cup boot if they walk off the pitch over racism in Russia.

FA chiefs are so concerned by the threat that they will take the unprecedented step of briefing boss Southgate (above) and his squad on the protocols they MUST follow if they are abused this summer. We

understand that competing nations have already been told by FIFA that players must abide by official procedures put in place.

That means reporting any such outrages to match officials so that they can be included in their post-match report to FIFA.

Southgate said: “We will work with our players on how we will support each other if anything like that [racism] was to happen. The most important thing is that, internally, we are able to support our players and that they understand how their team-mates and our staff are going to go about that.

“There are some sessions that we will do with them – and there is also an official protocol to be followed.”

Southgate added: “As a federation, we would be strong in pushing for all the right and proper solutions within that.

“We want to have everything in place, but the most important thing is that the players feel that they have our full support.

“We really hope that a situation doesn’t emerge and that it’s a festival of football.

“We want to be talking about what happens on the pitch, and not about what has happened off the field.”