A petition demanding people who racially abuse players be banned from all stadiums in England for life, has reached over 1 million signatures.
The Change campaign has attracted huge numbers of support after England players Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Bukayo Saka were racially abused on social media following the Euro 2020 final loss to Italy on Sunday.
The petition reads: ‘Gareth Southgate’s England team plays for ALL of us.
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‘Their vision is an inclusive vision and this matters more than EVER – it’s why we feel proud of this team and why they’re so cherished and loved by many of us.
‘There should be no room for racists and bigotry in football or society.’
The current laws state that the maximum banning order for football stadiums is ten years – and this can only be issued for five years unless the offence carries an immediate custodial sentence.
Clubs have the rights to issue lifetime bans – but this can not be enforced by the police or the courts.
Boris Johnson told the racists to ‘crawl back under their rock’ – but the petition will put pressure on him and the rest of the Government to introduce measures to tackle the issue head-on.
England centre-back Tyrone Mings also called out Home Secretary Priti Patel who initially described the taking of a knee before football matches as ‘gesture politics’
Ms Patel tweeted about her disgust of the racist behaviour towards the England players before Mings retweeted her saying: ‘You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism messages as “Gesture Politics” and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against happens.’
Speaking in the Commons this week, Ms Patel said social media firms ‘can no longer ignore some of the appalling, vile, racist, violent and hateful content that appears on their platforms’.
The FA has also called on social media companies to protect footballers from trolls.
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