Former Inter midfielder Paul Ince has spoken on his own experiences with racism whilst at Inter in wake of Romelu Lukaku being subjected to racist chanting.
“I’m not surprised about what’s happened with Romelu Lukaku as unfortunately racism was a big issue when I was playing in Italy,” Ince remarked in an interview with Paddy Power.
“I remember going to Cremonese as an Inter player and getting injured. I was rolling around for a bit, but got up just to show I wasn’t hurt and carried on playing. I’d actually done my my hip in and I was trying to stay on, because I didn’t want to let the fans know I was hurt but for the next 20 minutes or so, until half time, they were shouting awful stuff at me, ‘n***o’ and ‘n***o di merda’ – that kind of thing. It was terrible.
“We ended up winning the game 3-1, but the next day I got a letter from the mayor of Cremonese apologising for what their fans had said and their poor behaviour.”
The Englishman went on to reveal that from the very beginning of his time with Inter racism was present.
“It was probably worse when I first joined Inter – the day I landed there was even a racist remark on the wall about me.
“Racism has always been an issue there and it feels like Italian fans have always gotten away with it. Their federation has never stamped down on it, and so they still feel they can use that kind of language and behaviour to intimidate black players.
“I don’t think UEFA did or still do enough to stop it. They have to set a precedent with all teams, whether it’s in Italy, France, England or wherever – but they’re not doing it.
“We’ve seen it in England recently too with Marcus Rashford, we’ve seen it with Paul Pogba and obviously now Romelu Lukaku.
“It isn’t right. Whether it’s the fans, or whether it’s social media, we’ve got to get our heads together to just stop all this going on.”
Ince then went on to state what he would do to try and combat it.
“It’s time to think about penalties instead of fines for clubs whose fans engage in racial abuse. We’ve got to throw that into the mix so that clubs and fans are aware that there is a real penalty if this behaviour persists.Fines aren’t doing anything. It’s not hitting home to anybody. It really, really isn’t and you can see that.
“We need to make it transparent, if this behaviour continues, or it happens again, your club is out of Europe. It’s difficult I know because it can be individuals who tarnish everyone else. Unfortunately, there’s always one idiot, or two idiots, that will do that.
“There must be a deterrent. Take points off whoever it is. Remove them from cup competitions. Playing in front of empty stadiums doesn’t really work – you’re only hitting the clubs in the pocket for two or three games – but point deductions, that could work.”
He concluded: “What disturbs me is we kind of felt racial abuse was being stamped out five years ago. but in the last year or two, racism has reared its ugly head again.”
