‘We take a zero tolerance approach’ - Football club bans parent who racially abused player
A 14-year-old Wroxham FC junior player was racially abused by an adult supporter from another team. Picture: Neil Perry. - Credit: Archant
A football club which took swift action after one on its supporters racially abused an opposition player at a match in Norfolk has said it takes a zero tolerance approach to discrimination.
AFC Sudbury has imposed an indefinite ban on a parent after they abused a Wroxham EJA u15s player during a match between the two teams in November.
The ban was imposed by the club as soon as it became aware of the incident in accordance with its code of conduct, signed by all players and parents.
The case was also investigated by The FA and following a hearing the man was handed a six-week ban from football which will last until March 8.
Following the ban the Wroxham EJA u15s took to social media to share its disappointment at The FA's ruling, saying the sanctions handed out were "not strong enough."
It also said it hoped AFC Sudbury would take action to try and "set an example."
Now, Andrew Long, chairman of AFC Sudbury, has said his club takes any form of discrimination extremely seriously.
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He said as soon as AFC Sudbury became aware of the incident the parent was banned.
Mr Long said: "We took the immediate action to ban the parent indefinitely from any game involving any of our 30-odd Sudbury teams until a time when we have investigated.
"We have all parents sign up to a code of conduct and within that is a clause which says any form of discrimination will not be tolerated. They know what the action will be."
Mr Long said he also attended the FA hearing where the parent in question was given a six-week ban.
"First of all discrimination is just wrong, there no getting around it," he said.
"We have a zero tolerance approach, and the reason is because we have a duty as a community club to ensure we do everything in our power to enforce a zero tolerance approach to all forms of discrimination."
Wroxham FC were contacted for comment.
