FA seeks UEFA talks on racist abuse

The Football Association is seeking “urgent talks” with UEFA after racist abuse marred another English club’s European trip.

Ipswich duo Marcus Bent and Finidi George were the latest victims of racism when they were abused and spat at during Town’s UEFA Cup second leg victory over FK Sartid in Yugoslavia.

Last night’s incidents followed similar abuse aimed at Thierry Henry during Arsenal’s Champions League thrashing of PSV Eindhoven in Holland, while Emile Heskey suffered racist abuse playing for Liverpool earlier this month in Valencia.

Now the FA’s director of international strategy David Davies plans an urgent meeting with UEFA to deal with the problem, which he claims appears to be targeted towards English clubs.

He told the FA’s official website, www.thefa.com: “We will be seeking urgent talks with UEFA.

“We need to step up the way in which we are looking at this issue – it is a worrying trend that it is the English clubs who seem to be suffering the most. We will sit down with UEFA to find new initiatives to tackle this problem.”