At least we’re trying to root out the racists
MUCH equivalency has followed the condemnation of Inter Milan’s ultras, who attempted to explain to Romelu Lukaku why the monkey chants he received from Cagliari’s loyalists weren’t racist. Fans in England are far from perfect, it was pointed out. What about the problems we have here? And nobody denies their existence. Within the vast majority of stadiums, however, issues have been addressed to the extent that the authorities can now target specific individuals behaving in an anti-social way, as happened at Stamford Bridge with the abusers of Raheem Sterling. What Lukaku experienced at Cagliari was racist chanting from a large number of fans, a tactic representatives of Inter Milan’s Curva Nord not only endorsed but admitted using. So that is very different, particularly as Italy’s clubs are too timid to take on ultra culture and its violent right-wing connotations. Equally, this has bled into the controversy around the £50,000 FA fine meted out to Huddersfield for their opportunist fake shirt sponsorship stunt to contrast to the £10,000 fine given to Millwall for their fans’ racist chanting last season. More evidence of English football being soft on racism? Not really. Millwall, the club, are in the vanguard of the fight against it. Anti-racist charities have honoured individuals who work there, Millwall’s Community Trust wins awards, in 2017 they were the Football League’s Family Club of the Year. It is widely accepted that Millwall work extremely hard to maintain a reputation a section of their support are happy to destroy. Football’s authorities often express sympathy for those fighting the good fight at Millwall, and their punishment reflects that. Huddersfield, by contrast, knew exactly what they were about when they got into an obvious scam with a publicity-hungry bookmaker. Their punishment reflects that, too. The FA take racism very seriously. More seriously, it seems, than Huddersfield take the standing of their club.