Bellingham calls on football authorities to act after "disgusting" racist abuse

Jude Bellingham has called on football's authorities to do more to address the “disgusting” racist abuse suffered by players.

The Real Madrid star said not enough is being done to tackle racism, after team-mate Aurelien Tchouameni was abused after scoring the winner in a 1-0 win at Mallorca at the weekend. England international Bellingham, 20, said racism is so commonplace in Spain that players have become used to it and he was not aware of the latest episode involving Tchouameni at the time.

“I didn't even know, to be honest,” said Bellingham. “In the games where we go away, in La Liga especially, you almost get so used to it that I wasn't even aware of the incident.

“That's a massive problem in itself. More has to be done, whether it's the punishment and how you react to it or how you move proactively to this kind of thing. No-one deserves that. It's definitely a call-out for the people who are in charge to take control.

“I doubt that will happen. It's going to be something that I imagine we will still have to just deal with going into games. You've just got to play your game and hope that the people look after you - but they're not doing it well enough at the moment.

“It's a horrible way for a player to prepare for a game, knowing that they're probably going to get racially abused. It's disgusting. It shouldn't happen. The people in power need to do more, especially with Vini [Vinicius Jr] in recent weeks – well, years actually.

“The blame gets shifted more onto him because of maybe his playing style and the way he likes to express himself and I don't think that's fair. The game would miss players like Vini if he decided to take a break because of this. More needs to be done to support these players."