Graham Kelly: The FA has work to do yet in combating racism in the English game

The disgusting racist jeering directed at England's black players, Emile Heskey and Ashley Cole, in Bratislava last week effectively placed the issue at the top of many agendas. It was raised at Question Time in the House of Lords when the sports minister Lady Blackstone expressed support for the Football Association's action in formally complaining to the sport's European ruling body, Uefa, and Lord Faulkner of Worcester reminded peers that even the Slovakian stretcher bearers had taunted the England players.

But, although the days when pioneers such as the England winger John Barnes had to summon up immense dignity to ignore the monkey chants and bananas thrown onto English pitches are long gone, there are many factors which we should ponder very carefully before making too many claims. To take just one ethnic minority, Asians are vastly under represented both in terms of playing and watching English professional football; the Asian population has suffered badly from negative stereotyping in the way Afro-Caribbeans did before them. Managers and coaches would not take a chance on black players, who, they believed, lacked "bottle" and now they are slow to recognise Asians, who, they feel, are constrained by traditional family ambitions.

Heskey's family members are afraid to travel abroad to watch him play. Until they can join the captain David Beckham's family and others on trips with the supporters, our authorities are merely paying lip service to the concept of equality. It was plainly risible for the FA to attempt to claim that the Slovakian racism provoked the hooliganism committed by some of the England followers.

Indeed, the idea that English football has somehow cleansed itself by a strenuous effort requires a leap of faith which conveniently overlooks the fact that in our multi-racial society it is now a criminal offence to chant racial abuse.

The game, sadly, has always been insular, which has meant that when it comes to tackling social issues, it has one arm tied behind its back. Some years back there was a television expose of a paedophile who was preying on the hopes and aspirations of schoolboy players. An easy target for the evil man, you might think? Not half as simple as the job the reporter had in making football people appear stupidly complicit. "P-p-paedophile? What's that?"

Like many areas of society, football has been resistant to change, particularly when it perceives such change is being enforced by authority or when it suspects positive discrimination is being urged in the guise of political correctness. As we have seen recently, it is the imperative of the market place that is immeasurably the most potent force.

The former politician David Mellor conducted a Football Task Force inquiry into racism in 1998 and concluded that there were still many racism problems, albeit at the lower levels of the game, so the FA immediately introduced a specific offence of racial discrimination. But how many cases are ever pursued?

For that matter, how often do English clubs complain when their players are abused on European grounds? Arsène Wenger thought it was up to Uefa to instigate action. FA officials have occupied comfortable positions on Uefa disciplinary and executive bodies throughout these years of complacency.

As the comedian David Baddiel pointed out in The Independent last week, there are grounds in London where anti-Semitic chants are regularly heard. And, of course, nearly every stadium has a high tolerance level of obscene chanting, while the disfiguring indecency of booing the opponents' national anthem has persisted into a new millennium.

Thanks to the usually admirable Pierluigi Collina, England does not go to Uefa with a clean charge sheet. For, in the European Championship qualifying match against Sweden in Stockholm in 1998, the Italian referee reported that Henrik Larsson was racially abused by English fans. The FA officials pleaded, to no avail, perhaps unsurprisingly given the level of hooliganism by the English, that they genuinely had not perceived any racism towards Larsson, merely the usual accusations of diving after Paul Ince had been sent off.

The reasons for the upsurge in racism at European grounds are difficult to discern. When Andy Cole was being abused wearing Manchester United's colours at Juventus, there were racist problems at Sven Goran Eriksson's Lazio. Since then, there have been moves to the right, and social scientists may point to increased fears over immigration. Also, further east, the globalisation of football may be threatening national identities.

Uefa, by their action in re-opening the PSV Eindhoven case after the Dutch club were fined a paltry £13,000 for the abuse of Arsenal's Thierry Henry, realise they should be getting tougher at long last.

The FA must keep up the pressure until grounds are closed and the message is learned that ignorant bigotry is sub-human and unacceptable.