RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The chief executive of anti-discrimination body Kick It Out says tougher sanctions are needed to punish discrimination in football, as the number of annual incidents hit a record high.
Kick It Out recorded 1,255 incidents of discrimination in the 2025-26 season across all levels of English football - up from 960 in the previous campaign.
Samuel Okafor said racism was "deeply ingrained" in the game, but it was a "reflection of wider society".
His comments came as Kick It Out revealed it had also received 1,744 reports of discrimination for 2025-26, which was a 25% increase on 2024-25.
Racism was the most reported with 792 cases - rising 19% - while homophobia rose by 46% to 203, sexism went up 12% and ableism was up by 20%. Antisemitism climbed 43% to 93 reports and there were 60 incidents of Islamophobia, which was an 88% increase.
Okafor added: "Tougher sanctions are needed, and I believe tougher sanctions will come, hopefully in the next few weeks, where people will face the consequences of their actions."
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During Ramadan last year, he was racially abused by a group of opposition spectators as he was waiting to come on as a substitute.
"It was our first game playing while we were fasting," he said. "So obviously we were hungry that day and I was a bit less patient.
"Then when I was getting ready to come on, one of the fans said I should shave my beard off and that I looked like a paedophile.
"One of them picked up a child who was about six, seven years old, and said 'I bet your wife's the same age as this child'."
Umar described the men as in their sixties.
"It's quite distressing, because they're older than my dad," he added. "They're my grandad's age, and they felt comfortable enough to stand there and make comments like that."
Umar said the assistant referee heard the comments and told the referee, who he claims did not take any action.
The police were eventually contacted and the spectators identified. Umar has not been informed of an outcome.
His manager Mohammed Patel was in the dugout during the match and said - while the opposition coaching staff apologised on behalf of their fans - he felt the officials fell short and should have removed those spectators shouting racist and Islamophobic abuse at his players.
Patel said: "It was a really emotional day for us, because the question we asked ourselves after that game is 'Why is it still happening?' Some of the things that were said were absolutely horrific.
"In my opinion, more needs to be done from the top down. We're actively engaging and working with local FAs to try and navigate this problem, but it absolutely needs to be mandated."
The Northern Counties East Football League fined the opposition club £300 and gave them nine disciplinary points. But Patel says that does not address the real problem.
"We've seen harsher punishments for violent conduct on the pitch or red cards, even administrative mistakes," he added.
"Something as serious as this, we were absolutely not happy with the result."
Patel has been lobbying the Football Association, but has not yet received a response.
He said: "Precedents need to be set, harsher sanctions need to be introduced. This comes from the top down."
The FA said in a statement: "We have introduced tougher sanctions for clubs and individuals, a new behaviour improvement programme, and penalty points accumulation charges in the grassroots game.
"This builds on the steps taken to allow for deductions of league points from clubs that are repeated offenders of serious misconduct."
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