The Prime Minister pledged government support to stop football being dragged back to the “bad old days of the past,” ahead of the Downing Street summit aiming to tackle racism in the English game. David Cameron promised that the summit would help “crack” the issue of race discrimination, which has recently reared its ugly head over the last few months, in a number of high profile incidents. Last year an incident between QPR footballer Anton Ferdinand and Chelsea captain John Terry led to the latter being charged pending his day in court and to lose his England captaincy. Furthermore, Fabio Capello’s public defense of the former England skipper resulted in him quitting the England’s manager job, as his comments were not backed by his employers within the FA.
A similar incident saw Liverpool’s Luis Suarez receive a fine and an eight-match ban for racist comments made to Manchester United’s Patrice Evra. The situation was futrther inflamed by Suarez’s refusal to engage a pre-match handshake with Evra in a match between the two teams.
Cameron’s mission to effectively stamp out such discrimination is encouraging and echoed by his promise that racism will be kicked out and subsequently has “no place in our society.”
