So by now most of you will have seen the footage of Chelsea fans stopping a black man from boarding a Paris metro on Tuesday night and/or heard the disgustingly vile racist chants that accompanied that disgraceful action.

Some fellow Chelsea followers have come out stating that these bigots are not true Chelsea fans.

Now I get that stance, no right minded ‘Blues’ fan would want to be associated with such behaviour and will not want the rest of the footballing world to tarnish them with the same brush.

But unfortunately we have to admit that these people (scumbags) are Chelsea fans. They have paid to leave the UK and follow Chelsea to Paris to support the club in an expensive Champions League tie. These people will have forked out a pretty penny to go to France and act like that.

To dismiss them as non footballing fans or non Chelsea supporters, is a bit like sweeping the matter under the carpet. We can’t allow that to happen or we risk losing the terraces to these same bully boys who will drive the smart, conscientious supporters away from our game.

Also lets not try and limit this problem to Chelsea. Every major club that I can think of has its bad elements within its support.

Old Firm followers will use any excuse to have a go at each other from religious beliefs to child abuse to 9/11. Groups of Manchester United and Liverpool fans trade insults over club tragedies. Supporters of Barcelona and Real Madrid will picker bitterly about national politics.

All over the world fans of rival sides will clash with acts of violence, racism, sexism or/and homophobic behaviour.

Sets of fans will often be admonished for using flares, throwing objects and invading the pitch.

So we can’t narrow it down to just one club. We need to stand up and condemn these elements of supporters that continue to erode our games standards.

All clubs, associations and football organisations need to have a zero tolerance policy and ban these supporters from all football stadia. We can’t just pay it lip service and then do virtually nothing.

When I say that I mean on all accounts in terms of violence, racist, sexist and homophobic abuse. Plus pitch invading, flares and tossing objects.

But unfortunately in the same week most of football has come together and have slated these terrible nutters for their actions in Paris, we have also seen the SPFL seem to turn a blind eye to sectarian chants that occurred during the the recent Old Firm encounter.

Many in football and particularly in the UK and at Sepp Blatter’s office, think that football has become fully tolerant. The truth is that it isn’t and that the problem is probably getting steadily worse.

It is the sign of the times. Our political culture is fast becoming entangled with extreme views and it’s toxic! That isn’t an excuse though.

Football needs to come together and try and drive out this intolerance and bigotry.

But our first step needs to be admitting we have a problem, a serious and very real problem!

Posted on February 19th, 2015 by scott
Filed under: Article