26th March, 2019
Manchester City and England Striker, Raheem Sterling has called upon the Football Authorities to exact stern punishment on fans who racially abuse players or anyone.
He made these claims after Danny rose was reportedly abused during the 5-1 victory encounter over Montenegro.
He told Sky Sports: “It’s now time for the people that are in charge to put a real stamp on it because you can fine someone but what’s that going to do?
“You’ve got to make it harder – you’ve got to punish all the fans so they can’t come to the games, you’ve got to do something that’s really going to make them think twice. Because if their team can’t play with fans it’s going to be difficult for them and make them think twice about it.
“I can only, we can only, the FA can only do so much. We’ve got to leave this to the people in charge to make a proper stance on it. Just banning one or two people is not going to change anything, even to our fans I’d say the exact same thing.”
Asked by Sky Sports News’ Rob Dorsett whether abuse should warrant stadium bans or teams playing behind closed doors, Sterling said: “Yep. Something serious for them, to make them think twice about doing it again.”
“We know, all of us know what skin colour we are, so I don’t know what the big issue is, it’s not like you’re telling us anything new.
“It’s not just young black man, it’s young kids growing up in diverse cities. It’s not just black kids I want to reach out to. In England we’ve got a diverse country and it’s 2019 as I keep saying and there are a lot of different phases in our country and bringing awareness to let people know these are new times, it’s different.”