‘Racism has raised its ugly head again and it will keep doing so until the football authorities do something about it’
SHOCKED CITY LEGEND DEMANDS ACTION AGAINST BIGOTS
COVENTRY City legend Dave Bennett was left “shocked and saddened” by seeing England players racially abused in the Euro 2020 qualifier with Bulgaria. The former Sky Blues star experienced regular abuse as a player back in the 1980s and 1990s, and Monday night’s scenes in Sofia brought it all flooding back for the 60-year-old.
“It was shocking and very sad, to be honest,” said Bennett, “because you’d have thought in this day and age with zero tolerance that we’d have got over it.
“But it has raised its ugly head again and it will keep doing so until the football authorities do something about it.
“They keep saying that UEFA and FIFA have protocols in place, but that has been the case for the last 10 years.”
Raheem Sterling was one of the main targets for the abuse, along with Aston Villa’s Tyrone Mings in the 6-0 victory for Gareth Southgate’s men – the England boss so concerned by monkey chants and Nazi salutes that he considered calling his players off just before half-time when the game was brought to a temporary halt.
Asked if he thought the players should have come off, Bennett said: “No I don’t, because if they’d done that then the racists would have won.
“They all knew what they were going to do when they went to the game, bringing in T-shirts etc with ‘No Respect’ on, so they knew what they were doing.
“The thing I was disappointed about was why the police didn’t arrest them.
“They had the Bulgarian captain going over to the fans at half-time but why was it just one of them?
“Then you had their manager saying he’d not heard anything and avoiding the question by saying it’s worse in England than over there.
“It’s shocking in this day and age, especially for players like myself, who still have baggage from the days when we played back in the dark ages.
“This next generation of players have a stronger word, as we’ve seen with some of the Tweets from some of the players, and fair play to them for standing up for themselves.
“When I played and got racially abused, if I said anything they completely ignored you. The linesmen, referees and other people claimed they never heard it and told you to get on with it, asking, ‘What are you moaning about?’ But now because of the campaigns and the way social media is, there is a voice for these lads and we have to keep trying to stamp it out as much as we can.”
Asked about his worst experiences as a player, one of the stars of City’s 1987 FA Cup final win over Spurs, said: “I couldn’t repeat the worst but I have
had all sorts of experiences where opposition players would call you names, the crowd would call you names.
“Back in the 80s and 90s the crowds were different because we played at places like the Dell at Southampton and Derby’s Baseball Ground where the fans were right on top of you.
“If you went to get the ball back if it had gone out of play the crowd could touch you and often called you names and threw things at you. It was right there in your face, more than it is now.
“And nights like this one just bring it all back, what we went through and had to go through as players in our day.”
He added: “Thankfully it’s not as bad as it was back then but there still needs more to be done to stamp it out. “They have got to start dishing out severe punishments because this has been going on for the last ten years since the protocols have been in place.
“You saw people making Nazi salutes on TV and yet the police didn’t go in and arrest anyone. If that was happening in England, with CCTV they have been identified and thrown out of the ground. They have to take action against the Bulgarian FA. It’s got to start somewhere because if you have zero tolerance that has got to mean zero tolerance and that means punishing the relevant authorities to ensure they get their house in order.”
It’s shocking. You saw people making Nazi salutes on TV and yet the police didn’t go in and arrest anyone. Dave Bennett