Gary Neville has called out the Premier League for their response to racism. The former Manchester United player said that the Premier League hides behind the FA when it comes to dealing with incidents.
Neville suggested that players may have to be empowered to walk off the pitch if there is an incident of racism such as occurred during the Spurs and Chelsea game on Sunday.
In the 63rd minute at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger indicated that he had been the subject of racist abuse from a fan.
It was subsequently announced over the tannoy in the stadium that the game had been stopped as a result of the incident.
"We have a racism problem in the Premier League, in England, and the Premier League have got to stand up," said Neville.
"They hide behind the FA, the Premier League, on this issue, they hide behind the FA, in my opinion. They push disciplinary issues to the FA.
"Yes, we heard the announcements at the end. But I said it a couple of weeks ago, we’ve just had a general election in this country, both main parties and the leaders of both main parties are accused constantly over the last month of fuelling racism and accepting racism within their parties.
"If it’s accepted in the highest office in the country, we’re not talking at a micro-level, we’re talking about it at the absolute highest office in the country.
"It’s the same here today, we’ve seen an incident, to be fair which we could say is down to one individual person, but it’s a far bigger problem than that."
I don't want to involve Tottenham as an entire club into this situation as I know that just a couple of idiots were the offenders. I got a lot of supportive messages on social media from Spurs fans as well in the last hours - thank you a lot for this. (2/4)
— Antonio Rüdiger (@ToniRuediger) December 22, 2019
If not, then there must have been witnesses in the stadium who saw and heard the incident. It's just such a shame that racism still exists in 2019. When will this nonsense stop? (4/4)
— Antonio Rüdiger (@ToniRuediger) December 22, 2019
"I think there has to be something that happens quickly," Neville continued.
"I think we maybe have to empower the players to walk off the pitch and stop the entertainment while it’s happening. That’s the only way I can see it happen.
"Ultimately, I didn’t walk off the pitch when Ashley [Cole] was abused 15 years ago and you might argue that it’s now okay for me to sit here in my ivory tower of the commentary box and suggest players should walk off the pitch.
"But I think, ultimately, I would be ashamed of not doing it 15 years ago and absolutely proud of players now to empower them to think, do something about it, take it into your own hands.
"The PFA have to act because the PFA are there to protect players in this country and football players in this country are receiving abuse while playing football and doing their jobs and that is unacceptable.
"The PFA have to take it into their own hands with the Premier League and FA and stop pointing the finger towards the Bulgarian FA and Spanish FA because we have to deal with our own ship here."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEpG5JNWCWI
