£2BET IN STORE I’VE HAD ENOUGH
Danny Rose cannot wait to retire because of racism
TOTTENHAM and england defender Danny Rose says he is sick of racism in football and now longs for the day he retires from the game. Rose (below) was among the players subjected to racist abuse in montenegro last month as england won 5-1 in a euro 2020 qualifier. The 28-year-old also believes fines handed out by FIFa and UeFa do not go far enough in dealing with the problem. ‘I’ve had enough,’ said Rose. ‘at the minute, I programme myself to think, “I’ve got five or six more years left in football and I just can’t wait to see the back of it”. ‘Seeing how things are done in the game at the minute, I just want to get out. That’s how I feel. ‘I have five or six more years left and I just want to enjoy football as much as I can. ‘ There’s so much politics and whatever in football and I just can’t wait to see the back of it, to be honest.’
DANNY ROSE says he cannot wait to see the back of football because of the racism which blights the modern game.
The Tottenham defender, who was among the England players targeted with racist abuse in Montenegro last week, hit out at the ruling bodies for failing to tackle the problem.
He branded the current situation a ‘farce’ and does not expect it to change when football’s authorities continually fail to punish the offenders.
‘I’ve had enough,’ said Rose. ‘at the minute, I programme myself to think, “I’ve got five or six more years left in football and I just can’t wait to see the back of it”. Seeing how
things are done in the game at the minute, I just want to get out of it.
‘That’s how I feel. I’ve five or six more years left and I just want to enjoy football as much as I can. There’s so much politics and whatever in football and I just can’t wait to see the back of it, to be honest.’
Rose maintained a dignified silence immediately after the Euro 2020 qualifier in Podgorica, which England won 5-1.
Speaking publicly for the first time since, the 28-year-old said he had been braced for the abuse in Montenegro after experiencing similar problems in neighbouring Serbia during an England Under 21 fixture in 2012.
‘I thought it would be a possibility it might happen again,’ said Rose. ‘So I sort of prepared for it and, yes, it happened. I looked up straight away in the first half. I know the exact time it happened. It didn’t affect my game. I was fine. Had we not been winning, the yellow card I got at the end might have been a red one. But yes, I’m fine. I prepared myself for it, we won and now we just wait for whatever punishment, if any punishment happens.’
UEFA are investigating the matter but, after so many incidents, players are losing faith in the authorities to combat the issue.
‘Obviously it is a bit sad,’ said Rose. ‘But when countries only get fined what I’d probably spend on a night out in London, what do you expect? When the punishment is not as harsh, what do you expect? you see my manager at Spurs, Mauricio Pochettino, get banned for two games when he has just been in a confrontation with Mike Dean at Burnley. and, yet, a country can only get fined a little bit of money for being racist. It’s just a bit of a farce at the minute. Until there’s a harsh punishment there’s not much else we can expect.’
as for his decision to stay silent after the match, Rose added: ‘I wasn’t upset and didn’t want the focus to be on me and a small — and it was only small — minority of the fans doing the chants. I just wanted everybody to focus on a great week we’d had with England. We scored 10 goals and it was a great performance over two games. I’m a big boy now and I know that three points are obviously not the most important thing when you’re going through something like that, but I just wanted the team to get three points so we could move on and get out of Montenegro as quickly as possible.’
There has been a worrying spate of racist incidents inside football grounds this season, the latest involving Juventus teenager Moise Kean, targeted in Italy, this week.
England manager Gareth Southgate and Spurs boss Pochettino have both said they would lead their players off the pitch in future if they were aware of racism from the crowd.
‘I spoke to Gareth after the game and he wasn’t aware of it,’ said Rose. ‘ I didn’t mention it at half-time so he wasn’t aware of what was happening until he heard it right at the end.
‘The manager was a bit upset. He told us it was the first time he’d been involved with something like that and he didn’t know what the right course of action was.
‘He said he was fully behind me if we wanted to walk off. I just wanted to get the three points and get out of there as quickly as possible.’
‘I didn’t speak up after the game. I wanted to get out of Montenegro as fast as possible‘