PFA chief: I would walk off pitch if being abused

England football stars would be well within their rights to walk off the pitch if they are racially abused during Euro 2012, the chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association said yesterday.

Clarke Carlisle said he would want to walk off the pitch if he received a torrent of racial abuse and he hoped his team-mates would support him.

Uefa, the governing body, has said players who walk off the pitch during the tournament in Ukraine and Poland in protest at racial abuse will be handed a yellow card.

“This is going to be a real test of Uefa to see if they have empowered their officials to take control of these situations.

“If [the referee] has stopped the game and it is one or two individuals and they are being sorted out, or if it is a group and he is taking the players off the pitch to sort it out, then you’d be happy because you know it is being dealt with.

“If it happened to me I would want to walk off the pitch and I would hope that my team-mates would support me.”