Chelsea FC To Ban Racist Fans

Chelsea FC came away to with a great result on Tuesday night to put them in a prime position to finish the job at Stamford Bridge and qualify for the quarter finals of Europe’s premier competition. Unfortunately, this has been rather overshadowed by an incident involving Chelsea fans on the Paris metro.

More from The Pride of London

• Bournemouth 0-0 Chelsea player ratings: Abysmal, reckless, wasteful
• Bournemouth 0-0 Chelsea: 3 Blues talking points
• Bournemouth vs Chelsea: 1 Blue Mauricio Pochettino should drop
• Bournemouth vs Chelsea: 3 Blues who must start
• Predicted Chelsea lineup vs Bournemouth: Palmer starts in 4-2-3-1

On their way to the Parc des Princes, some so far unidentified commuters have been caught on video seemingly intentionally preventing a black man from boarding a train. The reason they can be labelled as Chelsea fans is due to their loutish rendition of “Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea”. However more importantly, they were allegedly heard chanting “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it” amongst other racial slurs. The footage is below, so check it out and make what you want of it.

This is a shocking incident that sets British football back some 30 years to an era we would much rather forget. Meanwhile, Chelsea have duly responded to the event and have released a statement in which they say that they “will support any criminal action against those involved”. Further to this, they “will take the strongest possible action against them” should the fans turn out to be club members or season ticket holders.

Now, this is all well and good, but I’m not going to congratulate the club for condemning the despicable behaviour exhibited by these pathetic people. It is 2015. An incident like this should be taken for granted as something that has no place whatsoever in society let alone sport and thus Chelsea should not feel the need to put out a statement which is essentially just PR.

This is not a gripe directed towards the club, but more towards our current social norms. There has been a lot of hot air being blown in the aftermath of the incident, with statements (or tweets because of technology and that) from seemingly everyone adding their bit condemning the fans. However, it should not be the case that in this year and in the forward-thinking, multi-cultural country that the UK professes to be that this article should be written. This should not be news.

An incident like this should be taken for granted as something that has no place whatsoever in society and thus Chelsea should not feel the need to put out a statement

It is obvious that Chelsea should ban these fans. This should not be newsworthy. Furthermore, the onus should be on the police on both sides of the Channel to prosecute these men and uphold the morals upon which modern society is built. Again, this is not a shot at Chelsea. The club have had to do this because someone somewhere would have irrationally accused them of supporting racism had they done otherwise.

We should be beyond this as a society, and these people should be dealt with swiftly and not be allowed the attention they are getting. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Having said this, at least action is being taken and faith must be put in the justice system to serve up to the offenders what they deserve.

More from Champions League

• Chelsea 0-2 Real Madrid: 3 Blues positives and negatives
• Chelsea vs Real Madrid: 3 Blancos the Blues must stop
• Why you can’t count out Chelsea in the UCL against Real Madrid just yet
• Real Madrid 2-0 Chelsea: 3 Positives and 3 negatives
• Real Madrid 2-0 Chelsea: 3 lessons learned in UCL quarterfinal loss

On a positive note, it is clear that these people form part of a very small, yet vocal, minority in British football today. The game has come a long way from the ’80s and the widespread condemnation indeed supports this. More often than not people making racist remarks during matches are reported and dealt with and thus, on the whole, there shouldn’t be an overblown reaction to this incident that puts all football fans under a racist or hooligan-culture banner.

This type of behaviour has no place in our world but neither Chelsea FC or UEFA should have to insult your intelligence by telling you through PR statements like this.

Here’s to not seeing morons like this get any airtime anytime soon.