Roberts urges zero-tolerance stance on racism

Reading striker Jason Roberts has once again spoke about the current racism issue in football, arguing that more needs to be done to prevent such discrimination.

The 34-year old has been in the media spotlight concerning racism in previous months, refusing to wear the 'Kick it out' T-shirt in a warm up against Liverool in September, which received heavy criticism from Sir Alex Ferguson, despite defender Rio Ferdinand taking the same stance. However, Roberts feels that organisation such as Kick it out, are failing to do enough to prevent such scandalous behaviour from fans.

Speaking to Sky Sports News, Jason said: 'All of the various organisations, the police, the FA, the PFA, the clubs, should all take responsibility. It's interesting hearing people say the players have to do more. What about the police, the stewards, the FA? We need to have a proper zero-tolerance message and when these things happen we need to be pro-active, we can't be reactionary about this.'

'When we find these isolated incidents we need to hit the offending clubs or individuals hard and I don't think that's been done in the past. The FA has come out with an action plan but there is nothing in that plan to make me believe we are going to change this situation. There has to be the strongest possible sanctions and if that means games getting stopped I think people will start getting their house in order.'

'If players need to walk off the pitch then that's what it takes. It's a sad thing that players are being looked at to drive this but if the organisations will not do anything about it then the players have to. It has to be dealt with in a proper manner. If games are stopped I guarantee you things will start moving quicker than they are now.'

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