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Yaya Toure admits the levels of racism in football are “really shocking”

By ghanasoccernet.com
Sports News Yaya Toure
JUL 27, 2015 LISTEN
Yaya Toure

Manchester City midfielder Toure has joined a FIFA task force to try and eradicate the huge problem in Russia ahead of the 2018 World Cup.

It comes on the back of a shocking racist incident involving former Arsenal midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong which has brought new shame on the Russian game.

Ghanian-born Frimpong, who now plays for Ufa, called the Russian FA “beyond a joke” after he was banned for two games for making a one-finger gesture at fans who were racially abusing him. The Russian FA insist there was no evidence of racism.

That has put the issue back in the spotlight ahead of Saturday’s World Cup draw in St Petersburg and Toure – who was abused by CSKA Moscow fans during a Champions League game two years ago – says tougher action must be taken.

Ivory Coast star Toure said: “It surprises me even more when you consider everything that is going on, everything that FIFA is doing which often is imposing fines on clubs or closing stadiums or parts of stadiums so to see it continuing is really shocking.

“We have to eradicate it. We need to go even further now by having even tougher responses.

“The monitoring system allows us to detect people who are being racist in stadiums and that is a step forward.”

FIFA’s main weapon on trying to crack down on racism is to use more specialist match observers who will try and spot racism during games and they will target 2018 qualifiers to try and clamp down before the tournament itself.

But FIFA’s head of sustainability Federico Addiechi insisted the world governing body could not intervene on the Frimpong case but has asked the Russian FA for a full report by July 28.

That seemed to dodge the issue but Yury Boychenko, who also works for the United Nations, admitted the problem is serious in Russian society and also says there is a sense of denial.

Boychenko said: “The timing is very unfortunate. But it’s lucky we are hosting it now, it gives Russia the opportunity to look at racism.”

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