Rio Ferdinand has called on football’s authorities to do more to combat racism, noting that Richarlison having a banana thrown at him prompted a similar level of “vitriol” to his showboating at Nottingham Forest last month.
A banana was thrown in the forward’s direction after he scored in the 19th minute of a 5-1 friendly win over Tunisia at the Parc des Princes in Paris on Tuesday.
Footage showed Manchester United midfielder Fred kicking the banana away, with Richarlison later insisting racism will continue “every day and everywhere” until sufficient punishment is handed out.
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Ex-England defender Ferdinand offered his support to the Tottenham striker, who was the subject of much debate last month over an incident at the end of Spurs’ win away to Forest.
Richarlison started to showboat and do kick-ups, leading Brennan Johnson to clatter into the forward, while opposition boss Steve Cooper was critical of the Brazilian’s conduct, which sparked a social media storm.
Ferdinand said on his FIVE YouTube channel: “I’m not saying football can change or cure racism because I would be an idiot to think that.
“Football can play a good part in highlighting issues and standing together, standing strong and standing unified to make the authorities and powers that be put things in place to protect people, but it ain’t happening. It’s disheartening.
“You’ve got your own kids waking up and saying: ‘Dad, have you seen that banana thrown on the pitch at Richarlison?’ It’s madness.
“There was probably as much vitriol and hysteria on social media and in the media in general as there were with this banana incident, racism incident, as there was when Richarlison was doing kick-ups when he got smashed. Let that sink in. It is mad and crazy.”
He added: “Another day racism is OK and welcomed in football. Look at the reaction to the stuff with Vinicius Jr. I don’t see the federations coming out and absolutely backing these players and going absolutely against it or a big press conference being called and saying ‘we ain’t having this’.”
Richarlison, who spoke out in support of international colleague Vinicius Jr earlier this month after the Real Madrid player suffered racism, said in a post translated from Portuguese on Twitter: “As long as they stay ‘blah blah blah’ and don’t punish, it’s going to continue like this, happening every…
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