Hungary vs England

Overshadowed by their victorious 4-0 win over Hungary in Budapest last night in a World Cup qualifier match, FIFA is set to launch an investigation into the racial abuse that was aimed towards England players during and before the match.

Gareth Southgate has spoken out and has called upon Fifa to take stronger action against racism this time after Hungarian fans targeted England’s Raheem Sterling and Jude Bellingham with monkey chants and flares during the match on Thursday night. This comes after Hungary already being ordered by Uefa to play their next three home matches behind close doors due to appalling discriminate behaviour from their supports during the June 2020 Euros. However, despite this punishment being ordered by Uefa, Hungarian fans were still allowed in on Thursday night as the game came under Fifa’s jurisdiction. Whilst Uefa manage the European teams in the World Cup qualifiers, it is in fact only Fifa that are able to take action due to the World Cup being their competition.

Speaking out after the incidents, the world governing body for football said, “it will take adequate actions” once they receive all the reports from match officials and stewards who were present at the game. “Fifa strongly reject any form of racism and violence and has a very clear zero tolerance stance for such behaviour in football”

Television cameras were able to pick up the boo’s and the monkey chants being hurled around the 67,000 capacity stadium that was aimed towards the players whilst they took the knee before the match kicked off. Sadly, the racial abuse only grew stronger after Sterling scoring the opening goal with him being pelted with paper cups and bottles from fans in the stands as a result. Again the abuse continued, as a flare was then thrown onto the pitch after Declan Rice and Harry Maguire went on to put England 3-0 ahead just shortly after half time.

Speaking after the game, England manager Gareth Southgate condemned Fifa for allowing this kind of behaviour to still be present in the game, “there’s no more this group of players or staff can do in the fight against racism. Other people have got to take the right action to try and make progress”. The England manager went on to say, “Although some people are stuck in their way of thinking and prejudices, they are going to be the dinosaurs in the end. The world is modernising. Hungary isn’t anywhere near as diverse as our population. It’s taken us a long time to get to where we need to get to. We’ll continue to try to set the right example for young people in our country.”

England’s John Stones spoke after the game on what was his 50th cap for the team saying that England will not stop fighting this discrimination, “It’s so sad to think that this happens at our games,” he went on to say, “I hope whoever needs to take care of it does. I’m sure they will. We stand together as a team and we did do before the game. We’ll continue fighting for what we believe in as a team.”