ENOUGH is enough was the exhortation of a clearly angry and dismayed Manchester City captain Yaya Toure after he suffered racist abuse while going about his business.

And if ever there was a motto, a message, a mantra that should be adopted by that litany of lettered football officialdom – the FA, UEFA, FIFA, even the PFA – then Toure’s exclamation is the most apposite.

Toure was playing for Manchester City in the Russian capital against CSKA Moscow in the Champions League.

After he was fouled he then exploded into fury claiming that he was the subject of monkey taunts from the home crowd, a crowd that has previous in alleged discrimination against black players.

After the game a rightfully indignant Toure said it was time for UEFA to act. It is time for all football’s powers to act and to finally stop shilly-shallying about the issue.

Recently UEFA, who have announced an inquiry into the incident at the Khimki Arena, have imposed tougher sanctions than their customary slap-across-theknuckles fines.

There have been partial ground closures for clubs playing in matches after being found guilty of racism.

But that’s not even half-way to tackling the problem that is endemic certainly in Russia and many of the nations that lurked behind the old Iron Curtain.

It has to be stressed too that racism is not just confined to those countries.

Its despicable tentacles have snaked across Europe and remember that England itself has been besmirched in recent seasons by the racism scandals involving Luis Suarez at Liverpool and then England captain John Terry of Chelsea.

Perhaps it’s the sanctimonious attitude that frequently flares from these shores that persuades other guilty parties from taking an attitude claiming we should put our own house in order.

There is some truth in that, but the regularity of racism in former Eastern bloc realms and republics is such that the problem can no longer be ignored.

How must it feel to someone like Toure to be so insulted, so degraded, so outrageously treated just because some ignorant infestation of lice wants to shrill its foulmouthed filth?

This was a Manchester City captain, who himself played two years in Russia, who himself is fluent in the language, who on Wednesday was sporting a captain’s arm-band which proclaimed the legend of “No To Racism”.

There has been criticism of the match referee, Ovidiu Hategan, for not heeding Toure’s pleas and not taking punitive action.

But what pressure there was on an official to determine whether the game should go on, especially at a game attended by a crowd where hostility could have been ramped up to potentially calamitous levels.

It would too have been too onerous on say Toure himself walking off as did Kevin-Prince Boateng, who was similarly racially abused when playing for AC Milan against lower league side Pro Patria in Italy ten months ago.

That ended in the match being abandoned as his team-mates followed the midfielder off the pitch, but that was a friendly.

There were not millions of television viewers watching, there was no Champions League points at stake.

No, it is up to the FA, UEFA and FIFA to at last step up to the plate and dish out swingeing penalties.

Remember, the World Cup is due to be held in Russia in 2018. What then would happen if black players were to boycott said tournament if racism continued to scar the game?

There could be no African nations, there could be no players of the calibre of Toure, Neymar, Mario Balotelli, Daniel Sturridge – and how poorer would a World Cup be for that.

So let’s forget partial ground closure.

Let’s have the clubs of those racist fans playing future games behind closed doors and so hit them in the pocket.

Then if the outrages persist, just take points off them or award games to their opponents – again a kick in the finances. And if it all still goes on ban those clubs from competitions.

It is said that education or re-education is the key, but that’s longterm and it’s been too long coming that firm enough action takes place. Until then let’s have some sharp, strong action...now.

 

REVELATIONS this week from a grump once dominant in Manchester with plenty of axes to grind.

Morrissey’s autobiography? No the latest tome of vicious snideness from an old man now in retirement dishing the dirt on his former contemporaries and some of the men in his charge who did so much to make him successful.

But the worst thing. All those media, so many banned and badgered by the author himself, yet still they played ball as if the book was handed down from some Biblical summit on tablets of stone