IT’S crazy that i have to write another column a week later about racism.

No-one was so foolish as to point fingers at Bulgaria for their fans’ behaviour and not acknowledge that Britain has a problem as well.

That what happened in Sofia to the English national team isn’t happening up and down the country, from the grassroots game to the professional, on a weekly basis.

And anyone who did try and argue that England has solved its racism problem would have seen over the weekend that there were three separate incidents of racism, in three different competitions, in two countries — British football has a very serious problem with racism and until the English Football Association and its partners take it seriously it will never go away.

Take the racist abuse Haringey Borough received, in their FA Cup tie against Yeovil on Saturday.

Manager Tom Loizou, in the 64th minute, walked off in protest, backed by Yeovil players and management, after goalkeeper Douglas Pajetat was spat on and had a bottle thrown at him — as well as defender Coby Rowe being racially abused.

Both clubs came back out later on in solidarity but a defiant message was sent — racism will not be tolerated.

I found it interesting that Haringey chairman Aki Achillea said on Sunday that his players “had no choice” but to walk off and added that: “whatever views other people have about whether it was right or wrong to walk off the pitch, I am now firmly in the camp that it was 100 per cent the right thing to do.

“I have to say that before that, I wasn’t. I was always on the standpoint that you set a very dangerous precedent if you start walking off.

“I think in truth it demonstrated my ignorance in having that view, because until I saw it happen to us yesterday, I didn’t realise how compelling it was that you had to make a stand.”

Prior to this FA Cup tie, you had a few England players say, before their game against Bulgaria at the start of the week, that if they were to receive any racist abuse they would leave the field — they were racially abused but carried on with the game.

Tyrone Mings, who was a recipient of some of the abuse, said afterwards that they as a team took the decision to continue with the game.

However, both Mings and Raheem Sterling praised Haringey’s decision via social media.

Sterling, a player who has been racially abused by football fans and by certain sections of the media, said he wanted to see “more of this” when referring to players walking off the pitch if racially abused.

But when faced with the exact same predicament, just days earlier, Sterling and his England teammates played on.

I wrote last week that the England players in Bulgaria could send an extremely strong message had they done what the Haringey players did.

And in the aftermath, there were a lot of people who were making the same point — England spoke a strong game beforehand when saying they would take action but when it came down to it took the “easy way out.”

Now playing on while being subjected to vile racist abuse isn’t easy, I have never experienced racist abuse while playing but I have seen Asian teammates of mine racially abused by parents on the sideline. We were 16 at the time, and we got on with the match.

My friends, one of whom I had known since the age of five and still know to this day, was visibly affected by it and we actually speak about it quite a bit and laugh it off — mainly because we cannot believe that parents would stoop to that level during Sunday league football.

We weren’t Mings and Sterling, no-one would have batted an eyelid had we stopped playing. But people would have taken notice if the Lions did just over a week ago.

People noticed when QPR’s youth team did it during the summer.

People noticed when Haringey did it over the weekend.

I said last week that England missed an opportunity to genuinely change the landscape of football.

That’s not to say Haringey players, Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos and the Luton Town team would not have gone through what they did had Gareth Southgate marched his team down the tunnel.

But it shouldn’t have been left to a group of players, in a game not on national television, to do what players paid tons more should have done. 

Don’t get me wrong, money has nothing to do with it — industrial action at any level is vital and sends out the same message.

And who are we to demand what others should do, the England team clearly felt that the best way to tackle racism on that night was to deliver a footballing clinic on the pitch.

But there is no denying that had it happened on a bigger stage, the ripple effects would have been felt across the globe — front page headlines in various countries, genuine committee meetings and discussions led by Fifa, Uefa and other governing bodies.  

What happens next in Britain will be interesting.

The English FA has to kick Yeovil out of the FA Cup, if their own investigation concludes what both teams have said happened.

They may have been winning at the time when the game was abandoned, it may have been the Haringey players that walked off the pitch.

But there is no way that the non-league club should face any punishment, it would be the biggest mistake the FA could make.

And it has to continue with that stance going forward — fans of a team who are found guilty of racist abuse need to be kicked out of the competition, if it’s a cup game, or docked a significant amount of points in the league.

Because it will lead to fans self-policing. If Yeovil are banned from the FA Cup this season and next, you think supporters would stand by idly if it happened again?

And not just at Yeovil, at any club.

I’ve made the point before, if teams were told that any kind or abuse, be it racist, homophobic, sexist or whatever, would be met with immediate rejections and point deductions, you would see an instant change in the way clubs handle abuse.

You would see more fans turn in offenders, or nip it in the bud the moment someone hurled abuse.

Football has the ability to make a stand, lead the way in the combat of racism and the far-right in the stands, but in order to do so it must take a zero-tolerance approach.

And how it handles the incidents that occurred over the weekend could set a precedent going forward.

Though it is more likely we are back here in a few weeks, pondering how best we eradicate this kind of abuse from the game.