Hanging Judge: Ref’s responsibility in racism row

The recent 20/20 European Championship qualifier between Bulgaria and England was suspended twice before half time because of racist chants at some England players.

Raheem Sterling, Tyrone Mings, and Marcus Rashford seemed to be particularly singled out for abuse from a small section of the Bulgarian supporters, although I’m not sure they deserve to be called supporters.

More like thugs and hooligans.

There were allegedly monkey chants and Nazi salutes which could clearly be seen from television and photographic pictures.

So what should the referee do?

Well let’s deal with this particular game and the responsibilities of the referee. If a player approaches the referee and complains that there has been racist abuse from the crowd, the match referee, in this case Ivan Bebek from Croatia, will immediately adopt Uefa’s three-step protocol.

Although he would have been trained for such a moment, and have the support of the Uefa match delegate and match observer, there is a tremendous onus on the referee, who may well not have heard the abuse himself.

The referee will have a meeting at the side of the pitch with the match delegate and both managers and possibly the two captains.

Step One: The referee will arrange for the announcement to stop fans’ chants.

Step Two: If this does not work, another announcement will be made while the players will be sent to their respective dressing rooms for a specific period.

Step Three: After consultation, he will abandon the match if the discriminatory behaviour still does not cease or breaks out again.

The protocols are set in stone although the England team opted not to enforce protocol two which would have meant their going off the field for 10 minutes.

The England manager, Gareth Southgate, said his players wanted to make a statement that they were not going to be intimidated and preferred to stay on the field.

In my opinion this was correct. They should let their football do the talking and this they did by eventually scoring six goals, four in the first half.

It is alleged that some TV microphones picked up more abuse in the second half but neither the players nor the referee were aware of it. If they had heard it then the referee would have had no option but to abandon the game and take the players off the field.

It was clear who the culprits were because they occupied a particular section of the stadium and were very conspicuous by their black attire and disgusting Nazi salutes.

They were observed exiting the stadium. The irony of all of this is that the stadium had a partial closure because of previous racist behaviour.

Some people never learn.

The governing bodies who control football need to send out a loud and unambiguous message to these people that such behaviour will not be tolerated. The paltry fines that are imposed are no deterrent.

In my opinion the entire Bulgarian FA, its clubs, international teams, delegates and referees should be banned from any and all international football for an indefinite time until they can give a guarantee that such behaviour will not happen again to visiting teams.

It’s not the first time that Bulgaria has been involved in such behaviour. In September 2011 other England players were abused. Ashley Cole, Theo Walcott and Ashley Young were subjected to monkey chants during their Euro 2012 qualifier.

The total punishment on that occasion? £34 320 (R656 000). What kind of message is that? It’s a joke.

Referees need to be strong when dealing with such incidents and enforce the protocols to the letter and maybe, just maybe, footballing authorities will get the message.

Please feel free to make comments or ask questions.

Happy whistling!

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