Ian Wright slams ’embarrassing’ Uefa and Fifa for failing to ban Hungary fans for England World Cup qualifier clash
IAN WRIGHT slammed Fifa and Uefa for not doing enough to tackle racism after Hungary fans abused England players on Thursday.
Raheem Sterling, 26, and Jude Bellingham, 18, were both subject to monkey chants from the home crowd.
And the Puskas Arena was full despite Hungary being forced to play games behind closed doors by Uefa due to fans displaying racist and homophobic banners during Euro 2020.
But since the 2022 World Cup qualifying match fell under Fifa jurisdiction, fans were allowed in, something which Wright could not beleive.
He said during ITV's coverage of the match: "You can’t believe that two organisations can’t get together and give them a three-match ban.
"The sad thing is that black players will know – especially when there’s a full stadium there – that they are going to get racially abused because they’re banned as it is, they’re allowed back in so as soon as someone like Sterling is getting fouled, they know they’re going to get the abuse.
"It’s in their workplace that this is happening. I think it’s embarrassing. I don’t know what to say about Uefa and Fifa. They don’t care enough. They don’t care enough to do anything about it.
"We’ve got to say ourselves, like Gareth so rightly said, we’ve got our own problems. It’s only a couple of weeks ago that someone got arrested for abusing Jadon Sancho.
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"So, of course, we’ve got our own problems but that doesn’t mean you can’t condemn that kind of behaviour.
"The banners, the videos, the armbands, the everything, the gestures… they don’t do anything.
"It’s all laughable, they don’t do anything. You’ve got to come down hard on people."
As well as monkey chants, the England players were booed as they took the knee and also had flares and several other missiles thrown at them.
The shocking scenes came despite a plea from Hungarian FA president Sandor Csanyi in the match programme to not make “racist, discriminatory or homophobic chants”.
Plastic cups of beer were launched towards Sterling as he celebrated his opener with the star making an emotional tribute to friend Steffie Gregg, who passed away after Covid-19 complications this week.
England responded with three more goals from Harry Kane, Harry Maguire and Declan Rice to win 4-0.
And in response to the match events the FA released a statement saying: "It is extremely disappointing to hear reports of discriminatory actions towards some of our England players. We will be asking Fifa to investigate the matter.
"We continue to support the players and stand in our collective determination to highlight and tackle discrimination in all its forms."
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