Premier League managers have called for racism in football to be severely punished to act as a deterrent.
The problem has arisen again this week with Danny Rose and Callum Hudson-Odoi subjected to monkey chants during England’s Euro 2020 qualifier against Montenegro in Podgorica.
UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings against Montenegro, including a charge of racist behaviour, and there have been calls for the punishments to be harsh.
“I think that all those things that happened, my feelings are that the punishments must be very hard,” said West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini.
“If you give a hard punishment then it is difficult to repeat. The media must not give time to three or four stupid people, it is a huge problem.
“But the time it happens, the punishment must be very, very hard.
“Not one player must accept this but for me, the best way is for players to keep playing and not give importance to these things and the people in charge must give big punishments.”
Everton boss Marco Silva was in complete agreement.
“Racism has no place in football or in society,” he said.
“It is completely wrong and if they have to punish, they have to be strong in this situation.
“When you do something you have to try to stop it so it doesn’t happen again.”
This week’s incident was not an isolated one with Chelsea’s lodging a complaint with UEFA regarding the alleged racist abuse directed at Hudson-Odoi during their 5-0 win over Dynamo Kiev in the Ukrainian capital on March 14.
Watford manager Javi Gracia expressed his surprise that incidents were still occurring in football.
“I think it’s incomprehensible that nowadays these things happen.
“It’s a very big lack of respect,” he said.
Huddersfield manager Jan Siewert felt there was, however, plenty of effort being put into eradicating the problem on home soil.
“First of all I appreciate everyone is working against it. Racism should not be tolerated at all and I appreciate the Premier League’s position on that,” he said.
“This is an important thing for me.”
