The upcoming 2018 World Cup is to follow a zero tolerance policy over racism issues during the tournament and such occurrence would be treated with stern penalties.
Honorary disciplinary chairman for FIFA, Claudio Sulser, has said that Russia would be strongly punished in case their supporters come up with any sort of racist gestures at World Cup 2018 in their country.
The chairman’s comments came just 15 days after the CSKA Moscow team were compelled to play the Manchester City squad behind the closed doors at Champions League. The incident was a follow up of violent racist antics from the fans, albeit 350 Russian fans were somehow able to access entry to the stadium.
“It’s an unfortunate situation & we need to come up with a strong handling here”, stated Sulser while speaking on dangers of bad racism which might arise during World Cup 2018. “It is something very critical & not at all an easy decision; however we would go through the very responsibility of association here.”
“We can’t sanction the very association in case they’re doing something that’s ethical or fair from their perspective- but one can’t forget the situation”, he continued.
“You have to think of the society as well as the spectators who frequent the stadium- & people won’t change just because they’re in the stadium. It is a bad problem for the society & hence it’s perfect to sanction association body for these kinds of attitudes.”
Jeffrey Webb, the anti-discriminatory chief of FIFA, had pointed out absence of sufficient staffs to tackle homophobic and racist issues at Brazil World Cup 2014. According to him, there’s a disconnection in between the governing organization’s stated goal of stamping off discrimination at sports & its very failure to deploy trained staffs in investigating & reporting on these cases.
No step was taken up against the German supporters who blackened faces at Ghana match or Croatia supporters who flaunted neo-Nazi flags & insignia.