November 27, 2017, 16:57 / Business / News

2018 World Cup referees will be able to cancel a match for the first time due to racism

The President of the International Football Federation (FIFA), Gianni Infantino, has promised to prevent incidents related to racism during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which will be held in Russia. "We expect fair play from teams on the field... by fair play we mean both anti-discrimination and anti-doping policies," Infantino said in an official video released by FIFA.

“[Preventing racist behavior] is FIFA’s top priority,” said the association’s president. According to him, if incidents of this kind do occur, at the 2018 World Cup the referee for the first time in history will have the right to stop or even completely cancel the match. “Discriminatory, racist manifestations are completely unacceptable, and here we will take a very tough line. In Russia we hope for fair play,” Infantino emphasized.

The fight against discrimination in football in Russia is overseen by the former captain of the Russian national team, Alexey Smertin - he was appointed inspector of the Russian Football Union (RFU) to combat racism in February 2017. He recently told Sport Express that the problem of racism in Russia is not too spicy. “It’s like fashion - it wasn’t born here, but came from abroad, from other countries. We've never had any problems with this. Ten years ago, some fans could give a banana to a black football player, but only for the sake of laughter,” said Smertin.