World governing body Fifa has a three-step protocol that allows a referee to pause a match and request a stadium announcement asking for chanting to stop if racism is heard. After that, the referee can suspend the match and request another announcement and then abandon the match if the chanting does not stop.
BBC Sport pundit Garth Crooks was unhappy that the referee did not follow this procedure on Monday.
“What really disappointed me is we know Montenegro have previous,” said Crooks. “Gareth Southgate knew that and that’s why he said his players were going into a hostile environment. He needed to be more specific than that – his black players were going into that environment.
“The referee should have, in my opinion, enacted the protocol. Southgate should have asked him: ‘Are you going to enact the protocol? If not, I am taking my players off the pitch.’
“When black players are abused the referee can now take action – it’s taken 25 years to get to this place – and the game isn’t protecting them. We have to hold the game and administrators to account.”
Former England women’s striker Eniola Aluko also wanted to see more action taken by officials during the match.
“It now needs to be part of referee training to do something during the game,” she told BBC Radio 5 Live. “We can’t continue to hear monkey chants in 2019. When racist abuse happens there needs to be a clear structure as to what a referee does.
“The officials need to do more. If everyone else can hear it, what are the officials doing during the game?
“The likes of Uefa really need to start clamping down, whether a points deduction, closing a stadium, maybe a tournament ban… it needs to make sure there’s a strong deterrent. No player should be going on the pitch and being abused – it’s not something the game should tolerate.”
There is no suggestion from the England camp that they are unhappy at the way the referee handled the situation, however.
