Sol : Time to dock points from racist fans

By: Rob | March 3rd, 2009

Sol Campbell has called for FA’s across Europe to dock points from clubs that have rascist fans, to put and end to abusive chanting once and for all. The Portsmouth defender has reguarly had to deal with abusive chants down the years, and reguarly suffers at the hands of a section of Spurs support who haven’t forgiven him for his move to Arsenal.

After his last battle against the abuse of the Tottenham support, Hampshire police put pictures of the perpretrators on the internet, and 11 people were arrested, with ages ranging from `3 to 54. Four pleaded guilty and were branded “animals” by the judge. The one’s that pleaded innocent will face trial in May.

The arrests woke up a lot of people,” said Campbell, “because some people just thought ‘I never thought it was wrong’ – that’s unbelievable – [or] ‘That wasn’t me’, as if football turns people into some different kind of person. ‘I’ve paid my money and I can say and do whatever I want at any time I want within that 90 minutes. There is a level. You say that on the streets and you’d be arrested or put away”

The Sol-man might have a point. There obviously is absolutely no place for rascist chanting in football – or anywhere else – and it seems that clubs supporters would be less inclined to jump on the bandwagon if they knew that it could make the difference between a club’s survival or not, or winning the league and not.

The only problem is the troublemakers that would come just to cause the club trouble. But if a club’s future was the prize, you could guarentee fans wouldn’t put up with the few smart-arses trying to get the club into trouble.

It seems crazy to be talking about this still in 2009, and football has made progress. But I look forward to the day when we don’t have to think about it – imagine a Tennis blog having this conversation? – and its just gone from the game, full stop.