Fifa chief Sepp Blatter on Friday said clubs tolerating discrimination should be expelled from competitions or relegated from their leagues and players like Paulo Di Canio should be thrown out of the game.
Blatter, in Japan for the World Club Championships, said there was no place in football for discrimination or extremism of any kind.
He was commenting on Lazio supporters showing a neo-Nazi symbol in the stands last weekend and striker Paulo Di Canio making a fascist salute.
”We have to be very tough against all discrimination in our game…,” he told a small group of reporters.
”This is a serious case because discrimination is always a serious case.
”In my opinion, teams should be expelled from the competition. We have this item in our files and such players, and I cannot make an assessment on the facts of the Di Canio case because I don’t have the file, but in such cases we must also exclude the players from our family.”
Earlier this week Lazio were fined €8 000 for letting their fans display a Nazi symbol but striker Di Canio was not punished.
The Italian football federation however has opened an inquiry into the player’s actions last Sunday in the away game at Livorno.
It is not the first time Di Canio’s politics have landed him in hot water. In March he was fined €10 000 for giving a fascist-style salute at the end of the Rome derby two months earlier.
Blatter said financial penalties were not enough and called for much tougher action.
”Definitely the only action you can take against discrimination and extremism and other deviations in football is to deduct points or go as far as expelling a club from a competition, or relegating them to the next league,” he said.
”A financial sentence is nothing because they will always find a solution. We have to be really tough. It is a shame, such a shame for the sport.” – Sapa-AFP