Former Ireland international, Clinton Morrison, has called two recent incidents of racist behaviour towards Premier League players "a disgrace".
Morrison, who won 36 caps for Ireland, appeared on 2FM's Game On on Monday night. The 39-year-old addressed Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang having a banana thrown at him during the North London derby against Spurs earlier this month and also the scenes which saw four Chelsea fans suspended from attending games due to behaviour towards Raheem Sterling at the weekend.
"Aubameyang... the guy said he didn't realise when he threw the banana what the implications were going to be," said Morrison.
If you throw a banana at a black person, you know what's going to happen.
That is 60s and 70s [stuff], it's like we're going back to the dinosaur years.
Chelsea has always been kind of a racist ground to go and play at times. We used to get it every week at Millwall. We didn't even want to go down the touchline and chase the ball the fans were so bad.
I thought it was starting to change and evolve but the scenes were disgusting.
We thought it had gone and it is getting bad so something needs to be done. Ban these fans when they do it for life.
Morrison commended Sterling for his response to the racist abuse.
Sterling highlighted the contrast with which the Daily Mail covered two young Manchester City footballers - one black, Tosin Adarabioyo, and one white, Phil Foden - buying houses for their mothers.
Adarabioyo was framed as having 'splashed £2.25 million' on a mansion 'despite having never started a Premier League game' while Foden 'set up a future in Manchester by buying his family a new home'. One purchase was put in a negative light, the other in a positive. Sterling suggested coverage such as this 'fuelled racism'.
Morrison added that he only once suffered racist abuse while playing for Ireland.
"The only time I got racially abused was playing for Ireland in Russia. I knew straight away when I got out there I was going to get stick.
"But the best thing I did was put the ball in the back of the net. It probably made them do it even more.
"I would deal with it how Raheem Sterling would deal with it, just ignore them and carry on doing my business on the pitch because those small-minded people are not going to get the better of me."
Picture credit: David Maher / SPORTSFILE
