Southgate: We won’t walk off for racist abuse

England manager Gareth Southgate insists his team cannot walk off the pitch if any of the players are targeted with racist abuse at the World Cup.

He was sad to learn that former Sunderland loan defender Danny Rose had told his family not to attend for fear of unsavoury incidents, and stressed that the Three Lions will continue to fight racism as strongly as they can.

However, he drew the line at making a stand by walking off during any of their matches in Russia, as it would threaten their participation in the tournament.

“People, in an idealistic world, would say you should do that, and it seems the realities are that you would be thrown out,” Southgate said ahead of tonight’s final warm-up friendly against Costa Rica at Leeds.

“I don’t think the players want that as they’ve worked all their lives to get to a World Cup.

“The ideal is we can raise the issue and confront the issue, but we want to play in the tournament.

“It is a difficult and delicate balance to get right and it is impossible for me to say anything which will please everyone.

“The landscape has changed in the 30 years I’ve been in the game.

“We can make some difference in football but we can’t change everything because problems are societal.

“The point I made to the players was maybe we can have a small impact with the way we conduct ourselves.

“The guys are fantastic role models for kids in that they can show what is possible so there is a possibility to change people’s thinking and have an impact, particularly in the communities they grew up in.”