After the racist incidents during last monthÂ’s clash between Croatia and England, FIFA fined the Croatian FA £15000. ItÂ’s difficult to understand what their thinking was, given that this is a relatively small fine and unlikely to concentrate the minds of the Croatian authorities on the subject. Both Rio Ferdinand and Emile Heskey, victim of racial incidents in Croatia, have criticised FIFA for the inadequacy of their approach to combating racism. Each have said that a points deduction penalty is the only way forward.

This week UEFA have revealed similar ineptitude on this subject by punishing Atletico Madrid for racist incidents with a three match ban on playing Champions League ties at their home ground. The trouble is, theyÂ’ve relocated their match with Liverpool to an unknown ground in another city only days before the tie, with travelling fans having already bought flights to Madrid, together with hotel accommodation.

In the last Formula One season, Spanish fans of Fernando Alonso, believing the McLaren Team to have given him less favourable treatment than team mate Louis Hamilton, turned out to demonstrate with blacked up faces and wigs. F1 chief, Bernie Ecclestone, told the Spanish racing authorities that a repeat of this behaviour would result in Spain losing their race. There have been no further incidents.

Football Against Racism in Europe (Fare) has identified several eastern European countries with racism problems including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and Moldova. It will be interesting to see what happens in Belarus tonight. In the event of further incidents of this kind, the points deduction penalty sounds like a good idea to me. Civilised fans, hearing racist abuse directed at players by nearby cretins, would doubtless have their own methods of dealing with the problem if the offending monkey noises might just as well be shouts of ‘Come on FIFA, dock us three points, dock us three points’.

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