As fans filled in to Stamford Bridge last Saturday for the match against Burnley, a video was played on the big screen. It was an anti-racism clip that had to be shown as a reminder that racism will not be tolerated at the club.

It followed the racist attack on French-Mauritian Souleymane S in Paris a fortnight ago. 

As Souleymane attempted to board a Paris Metro train on his way home from work, a group of Chelsea supporters — in France for that night’s Champions League tie against Paris St Germain — shoved him off and chanted: “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it.”

A nation-wide hunt for the supporters began the following morning and by the weekend a few of them had been named and shamed, including Richard Barklie, an ex-Royal Ulster Constabulary and Police Service of Northern Ireland officer and currently a director at human organisation the World Human Rights Forum.

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho used his Friday press conference to say he was “ashamed,” while owner Roman Abramovich was “disgusted” and offered Souleymane a ticket to the second leg of the match at Stamford Bridge.

Souleymane turned down the offer and who could blame him? He isn’t a fan of the sport and after what happened to him, why would he want to spend an evening with Chelsea supporters?

The whole incident has brought racism back to the forefront of the game but it has always been there. 

If the public thought racism had left football before the attack in Paris a fortnight ago they are wrong. 

You only have to look at the comments Stan Collymore gets when he tweets or what other black players are called on social media.

If what happened to Souleymane wasn’t caught on video no-one would have known about it. It may be cynical of me but there is probably evidence of racism up and down the country at football grounds every weekend.

Following Sunday’s 2-2 draw between Tottenham and West Ham a video was uploaded of alleged West Ham fans chanting vile anti-semitic chants and called Spurs fans “fucking Jews.”

The fact that an organisation like Kick It Out is still around shows that the problem is one that needs to be addressed. 

I don’t want everyone working there to be out of a job but it would be great if football didn’t need a group to stamp racism out of the game.

But it does because the Football Association, Fifa and Uefa are not taking the problem seriously enough and when they say they do it’s a bold face lie.

The next World Cup is being held in Russia, where the fans are notorously racist and there have been cases this season of fans of Russian teams competing in the season’s Champions League acting in a racist manner, forcing the teams to play their matches behind closed doors.

But has Fifa stripped them of the World Cup? Of course not.

Were they to be kicked out of the tournament until they cleaned up their racism problem, it would send a clear message that it will no longer be tolerated.

But let’s not ignore the fact that Britain needs to stop pointing the finger at other countries’ racist suppoters and attempt to sort out its own fans.

Black players are not hounded and villified as badly as they were a few decades ago but there has been more than one occasion over the past few seasons where black players have scored in the Premier League and fans have made monkey gestures.

For too long the FA has acted like it sorted out the racism on the terraces but it hasn’t. Small pockets of fans continue to behave in a racist manner, proving it is still well and truly alive.

Alyson Rudd from The Times and the FA have patted themselves on the back over the past few days and tried to act like this “incident” shows how far football has come. But it is has not come far enough in my opinion.

And as for Chelsea. While they can act disgusted and condemn the racist attackers, that wasn’t the club’s stance in 2012 when captain John Terry was banned for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand.

Twitter was awash with jokes after the incident, most along the lines of Chelsea had banned three suporters for racist language and handed a fourth a new contract and made him captain.

While this is no laughing matter, the London side are made to look like a joke considering the way they have handled issues of racism in the past.

I find it difficult to watch Chelsea continue to be applauded for the way they are handling this case when they dealt with the Terry one so appallingly.

They allowed the former England defender to continue playing which basically sent out the message: “Racism is wrong unless you’re a good player and we need you, in which case we will sweep it under the carpet and hope it never gets brought up again.”

Queens Park Rangers’ caretaker boss Chris Ramsey put it best yesterday when he said:“Racism in football has been parked, not eliminated.”