Caborn condemns Spanish FA fine
Sports Minister Richard Caborn has criticised Fifa’s lenient punishment of the Spanish Football Federation as a “missed opportunity” to take a strong stand on racism.
The Spanish FA was fined £44,750 for “deplorable acts of racism” against England players during the friendly with Spain in Madrid last month.
Manchester City’s Shaun Wright-Phillips and Arsenal’s Ashley Cole were singled out by sections of the crowd, while racist abuse was also prevalent at the previous night’s under-21 game.
After the punishment was announced the English FA described racism as “the scourge of the game” and said that a “zero tolerance” approach to any such behaviour was required.
Today, Mr Caborn has spoken in firmer terms, sugesting that a more severe punishment by Fifa would have sent out a stronger signal that such racist behaviour was unacceptable.
“It is an opportunity missed for Fifa to have stamped their authority on the incident and shown that football and sport in general is not going to tolerate racism,” the minister said today.
“I hope now that in the longer term they will give authority to the fourth official to suspend matches where there is racist abuse of the type we witnessed in Madrid, and if the chanting continues then to abandon games altogether.”
Chief executive of the PFA, Gordon Taylor, also criticised Fifa’s decision as “far too lenient”.
“The Spanish FA have been shown a yellow card, not the red that many would have expected. The general feeling in England will be that the sanction is far too lenient,” he said.
