‘Aleksander Ceferin has his head in the sand

DEAR Mr Ceferin,

You can’t possibly believe you are making inroads in the war on racism.

When you look across the continent and see the abuse suffered by players in places such as Spain, Italy, France, England and Eastern Europe, you can’t possibly believe the culprits are concerned about the stigma of their countries being cited and fined.

You call on the football family to wage war on racists – but isn’t that your job? You were elected president of UEFA in 2016. Since then social media should have made it easy for you.

The cases were being served up on a plate for you with the rise of camera phones.

The evidence was widespread with more and more players – especially in the last year or so – willing to stand up and be counted on the issue.

Still, you continue to fail them. Still, you continue to stick your head in the sand and, on your watch, allow yet another generation of black footballers across Europe to go into football matches without protection from abuse on the basis of the colour of their skin. Your head is in the sand if you seriously believe fines of £9,000 – the amount meted out to Italian club Atalanta for their fans’ racist abuse of Fiorentina star Dalbert – are working.

You remain detached from reality if you believe the £22,000 punishment handed out to Russia last year, for their fans’ racist chanting aimed at the black players of France, was sufficient.

If you were the CEO of a company, you’d be out of a job today, with the avalanche of players citing your failure to protect them a damning indictment of your