Anger for Troy but no shock

KICK IT OUT’S Troy Townsend admits he’s been angered but not shocked by the three latest high-profile allegations of racism within football.

Chelsea fans have twice been caught up in rows in the past eight days. Last Saturday Raheem Sterling was abused at Stamford Bridge, and in Budapest on Thursday a small section of Blues fans sang an anti-semitic song about Tottenham.

At the start of the month, a banana skin was thrown at Arsenal’s Pierre-emerick Aubameyang by a Spurs supporter.

Townsend said: “The question people have asked me was, ‘Were you shocked?’ And the honest answer is, ‘No’.

“And you can tell by the way Raheem reacted, he wasn’t either. We wouldn’t have wanted anything to have happened the way it did, not to Raheem and not to Pierre-emerick Aubameyang, or the situation with Chelsea in Europe. But sometimes things need to happen for people to open their eyes and appreciate that racism and discrimination have never really gone away from the game.

“For someone as high profile as Raheem to talk the way he did makes people take

note.”