by Craig Buck

Created on: December 23, 2011   Last Updated: December 24, 2011

Unfortunately there have always been undertones of racism in football. In the bad old days in the 1980's, it was not uncommon to hear some form of racist chanting at black players each week up and down the country. Over the past three decades, so much work has been done by the FA with it's Kick it Out campaign, clubs and society as a whole in an attempt to rid the game of this cancer.

Over recent weeks, events on the field in the English Premier League have brought the subject of racism in football back to the forefront of everyone's mind. On December 20, Liverpool Striker Luiz Suarez was charged by the FA for using insulting words to Manchester United defender, Patrice Evra, which included a reference to the color of his skin. Suarez was given an eight match ban and a £40,000 fine for his actions. Suarez's defence to the claim was that the word he used is perfectly acceptable back in his native Uruguay. Despite this claim, Suarez has played his football in Europe for the past four seasons, three of these in Holland with the past 12 months in England.

As football is now more of a multi-national game than ever before, Suarez's claim does highlight the fact that foreign players are moving to countries where the culture is vastly different from what they are used to. Football clubs are paying these players extraordinarily high wages and in return, should expect exemplary behaviour. The club however should also have a responsibility to educate it's overseas players on local culture so there is no misunderstandings on what they can say or do, so as not to offend fellow professionals or the general public.

A disturbing spin-off from the Suarez incident was the decision of the entire Liverpool squad to wear t-shirts in support of Suarez whilst warming up in a recent game at Wigan. Former Manchester United and Aston Villa defender Paul McGrath told the Guardian newspaper :- "There are a lot of children that watch these games and to have done what they did last night, doing their warm-up in T-shirts with his smiling face on it, having just been done for a supposedly racist comment to one of his opponents, is shameful for football. It puts the anti-racism campaign back to the beginning as far as I'm concerned." 

As well as the Suarez case, police this week decided there was enough evidence to bring a case against England and Chelsea captain following remarks he allegedly made to QPR defender Anton Ferdinand during a heated Premier League

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