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16th November 2006

Sports Minister speaks out against racism

Minister for Sport Richard Caborn said on Thursday he would speak to his Australian counterpart about the racial abuse suffered by two English cricketers on the current Ashes tour of Australia.

Spinner Monty Panesar, a bearded Sikh, was allegedly called "a stupid Indian" by a spectator during the tour match against New South Wales.

Panesar and South African-born batsman Kevin Pietersen were also abused in England's tour opener in Canberra.

"This is totally unacceptable and I'll talk to my colleague in Australia about the incident," Caborn was quoted by Indian news agency UNI.

The Sports Minister is in the Indian capital with regard to the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be staged in New Delhi.

He urged cricket authorities to counter racism in the manner FIFA did.

"In UK, we went through this problem, especially in football. But we worked with the football authorities, the managers, clubs and the players to solve the problem.

"All the authorities - political, sports and law enforcing - have to be at war (against racism). We have to systematically get rid of it.

"I want people to say 'we are not going to tolerate this' and I know that needs a lot of education... there were thousands of exclusion orders and we thus took the hooligan element out of soccer."