LES FERDINAND has said that football authorities are not doing enough to tackle racist abuse “because it does not affect them.”

The former England striker has claimed that the game’s governing bodies hand out “irrelevant” punishments because they have “never been racially abused.”

Bulgaria were ordered to play just two matches behind closed doors after their fans racially abused England players during the latters’ 6-0 Euro 2020 qualifying win in Sofia in October.

“For me, Uefa, Fifa and all the people involved in this may as well have stood in the stands with those people that were making the nazi chants, or the nazi salutes and the monkey chants,” Ferdinand said in an interview with CNN World Sport.

He said: “The people in power can solve this problem if they want to but they don’t really want to solve it because it doesn’t affect them.”

“The people trying to resolve the issues are probably middle-class, well-educated, Caucasian people, who’ve never been racially abused,” he said.

“So, when you’re handing out a punishment for something you have no idea about, the punishments become very, very lenient, as we keep seeing time and time and time again.”