British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged to prevent the specter of racism returning to football when he hosted a summit on Wednesday following some recent high-profile incidents.
Addressing football leaders and anti-racism campaigners in Downing Street, Cameron warned that abusive behavior by football stars is being imitated by youngsters and must be stopped.
In July, John Terry will become the first high-profile footballer to stand trial for racially abusing an opponent following an alleged confrontation that led to the Chelsea defender being stripped of the England captaincy earlier this month.
The abuse against black players was thought to have been eradicated after blighting English football in the 1970s and '80s, and Cameron cautioned that recent events must not ``drag us back to the bad old days of the past.''
``We have some problems still today,'' Cameron said at the start of the summit. ``We need to act quickly to make sure those problems do not creep back in.
``I hope what we can agree today is to make sure that everybody who has the ability to deal with this issue takes the steps they can ... if everyone plays their role, then we can easily crush and deal with this problem.''
Terry allegedly racially abused Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a match in October that was broadcast around the world.
English Football Association chairman David Bernstein told the summit that the governing body had already shown a willingness to impose ``very tough sanctions where necessary.''
Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was banned for eight matches for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, also in October. But Suarez created a new storm after returning to action earlier this month by refusing to shake hands with Evra, who is black, before a match at Old Trafford.
``What happens on the field influences what happens off the field. You see children as young as 6 imitating the behavior they see on the field,'' Cameron said. ``So this is not just important for football - it's important for the whole country ... we want to make sure football is all about a power to do good, rather than anything else.''
Cameron believes that combatting racism would be helped by having more black and ethnic minority coaches in the game.
There are currently no black managers in the Premier League and the government gave 3 million pounds ($4.7 million) on Wednesday to the FA's new coaching center in a bid to encourage more people from ethnic minorities to turn to coaching.
The anti-discrimination meeting also dealt with the lingering problem of homophobia in football.
``It's obviously quite unlikely that there are no gay Premiership players, and that tells you something about the tolerance within the game,'' Cameron's spokesman, Steve Field, said before the talks.
Justin Fashanu, the first black footballer to move in a 1 million-pound transfer when he joined Nottingham Forest in 1981, publicly acknowledged his homosexuality in 1990. His career subsequently faded and he was found hanged in a London garage in 1998 at 37.
Fashanu's niece, Amal, was among the participants at the Downing Street summit.
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Rob Harris can be reached at www.twitter.com/RobHarrisUK