UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin insists the organisation is “trying” and “we care” over the fight against racism in football.
A number of high-profile incidents in recent weeks – including racist abuse hurled at England players in Bulgaria and chants aimed at Romelu Lukaku and Mario Balotelli in Italy- served to underline the problem.
It has seen UEFA come under fire for what is viewed in many quarters as their lack of appropriate disciplinary action.
In an interview with the Mirror, Ceferin said: “I don’t blame the players for what they say. I understand that the players are desperate because of the punishments and the incidents that are happening again and again.
“Of course you want to say (to UEFA): ‘Go to hell!’ I know.
“But I am not so naive to think that we’ve done all we can and now everything is finished. We haven’t.
“We are trying and we care. We are not just some guys in Nyon sitting eating fancy food and driving Ferraris.
“I went recently to the European Union. We speak with governments. We are trying to do something.”
Asked if he accepted personal responsibility for a widespread lack of faith in UEFA, he added: “Of course I do. Many people have pointed out that I’m the face of UEFA.
“Do you know what is the destiny of the presidents of an organisation like ours is? It’s that you are mainly connected to the negative stuff. If we are successful, nobody cares.
“I was the same. But then you come to the system and you see, it takes time. It takes a lot of effort, a lot of discussion.”
One of the major moves lined up by UEFA looks set to be an overhauling of its disciplinary panels, making them more diverse.
Ceferin said: “You have to have different perspectives, then you have a more, let’s say, clear view on what is right and what is wrong.
“We want to be specific. So we are working on that we will change our statutes about it in March, the next committee.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here