Football Racism: Lukaku wants players to take action on the pitch

25 January 2020

Romelu Lukaku says footballers should take more responsibility on the pitch when it comes to racism.

The Belgian striker moved from Manchester United to play for Inter Milan in the Italian Serie A last summer.

But Italy, as well as the UK and other countries, has seen several incidents of players receiving racist abuse from fans.

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Speaking to Sky Sports, Lukaku said:

"This year we have to do better and we need to take action. We need to educate people. Education is key - I'm lucky that I have been to school and I've been in a school where we had over 50 different nationalities."

I never tried to discriminate anyone, it didn't matter... If you're cool to me, I'm cool to you. That's a lesson that I will teach my son, that nobody is different, everybody is the same. You just have to respect each other. If the person doesn't like you, just don't talk to him."

Italian football has faced many controversial moments in the last year. Everton striker Moise Kean faced racist chants from Cagliari fans when he played for Juventus. More recently Brescia striker Mario Balotelli threatened to walk off the pitch after being subject to racist abuse and monkey chants.

But it's not just football fans who have been responsible for racism.

Earlier this year Serie A unveiled a 'No To Racism' poster that featured the faces of three monkeys. The posters were widely criticised across the football world.

Corriere dello Sport

Romelu Lukaku (left) and Chris Smalling are former Manchester United team-mates

That was after an Italian newspaper, Corriere dello Sport had been condemned for printed a page with Roma defender Chris Smalling and Lukaku along with the headline 'Black Friday' in reference to the race of both players.

At the time Lukaku said the 'Black Friday' headline was "one of the dumbest" he had seen, while Smalling called it "wrong and insensitive".

"For me Italy is a beautiful country to live in", Lukaku said. "Italy has such a potential to be a great league like it used to, but we have to work together to keep those ignorant people out of the stadium."

Lukaku said he'd spoken with other players who have faced racist abuse:

"I spoke to the guy that it happened to where they stopped the games for one minute, I spoke to the guy and said, 'You did well to walk off the pitch and to celebrate in front of those ignorant people'."

"Sometimes we, as players, have to take matters into our own hands."