Why prehistoric Blatter must not be allowed to drag football's name any further into the gutter

Out-of-date Blatter should be kicked out of football now

Rio Ferdinand took to Twitter to say he was "astonished" at Sepp Blatter's comments yesterday on racism.

He shouldn't be. This is Sepp Blatter. This is what he does.

Blatter is a clown and it is a joke he is the most powerful man in world football.

He has already proved himself to be sexist, out of date, homophobic, possibly corrupt and now ignorant to racism.

What more does he have to do to lose his job?

His comments yesterday, that racism should be settled by a handshake and there is no racism in football, proved how out of touch he is.

In saying what he did he almost condoned racism, opening the doors for racist thugs across the world to spout bile and intimidate players and supporters with racist slurs.

As the head of FIFA, Blatter should be leading the charge to kick racism out of football but he has risked setting the game back 30 years with his ridiculous comments.

Racism is seeping back into football at an alarming rate now.

Luis Suarez has been charged with racially abusing Patrice Evra and John Terry has been accused of a similar slur against Anton Ferdinand.

Suarez has been charged with racially abusing Evra

It's not just these incidents which have highlighted it, it has been the reaction to them too.

Stan Collymore has been racially abused on Twitter for daring to condemn racism, just one of a number of examples of this.

And the response of the Wembley crowd to Terry this week showed views towards racism are too soft.

In 2010, Terry was roundly booed in a friendly against Egypt after reports he cheated on his wife with Wayne Bridge's partner, an accusation never proved.

Now, with an unproved racism allegation hanging over his head, it appears fans aren't too bothered.

He was booed against Sweden on Tuesday, but not roundly.

Too many don't seem to care about racism and worrying trends are beginning to emerge.

Of course, the Terry allegations have not been proved and he is innocent until proven guilty, but exactly the same was the case in 2010 with the cheat accusations.

Now which is worse, racism or infidelity?

Of course, both are wrong, but the worrying thing is people seem prepared to turn a blind eye to racism.

If Terry is found guilty of racism, he should be stripped of the England and Chelsea captaincies and face a long ban

Suarez has been charged with racism and he claims the term he used to deride Evra with has different connotations in Uruguay, but if he is guilty of using it he cannot be allowed to worm his way out of it. He has no excuses.

It is rumoured he will receive a six-match ban if his appeal fails, but that seems hopelessly inadequate.

A precedent needs to be set to stamp out racism once and for all. He should be banned for at least as long as Rio Ferdinand was for missing a drugs test, eight months.

There have been too many other racial incidents recently, too.

Sammy Ameobi and Fraizer Campbell have both been abused via Twitter, Chelsea fans chanted a disgusting song about Anton Ferdinand at Genk and another Chelsea fan allegedly shouted a racist term at Daniel Sturridge in Genk.

It seems we became complacent about racism in football and thought the problem had gone, but now it appears it was merely on the back-burner.

What is clear is that English football is still ravaged by racism and the FA should show no sympathy for anyone found guilty of it.

We thought we were leading the charge against it and condemned other European countries, like Spain, Bulgaria and Russia, after some of their fans were found guilty of it.

The problem may be worse in some places, like Bulgaria - where England players were racially abused - but there are no real deterrents in place.

Countries are made to pay a pittance of a fine and are given a slap on the wrist, leaving the racists free to do the same thing again in future.

This was the racist reaction of Russian fans after Peter Odemwingie left Lokomotiv Moscow for West Brom

Russia are the hosts of the 2018 World Cup yet it is common there for black players to have bananas hurled at them.

Mario Balotelli is often abused in Italy for the colour of his skin.

In Spain, monkey chants were heard directed towards Emmanuel Adebayor at the Nou Camp last season, while accusations of Sergio Busquets racially abusing Marcelo overshadowed the match.

There was clear TV evidence Busquets labelled Marcelo a "monkey", yet UEFA didn't ban him due to a "lack of evidence".

Football is turning a blind eye to racism and this is the result.

And now, with the head of the game proving himself to be no better, the floodgates could be about to open. In fact, they already have.

Blatter must resign now. He won't, of course, but he should.

His position ought to be untenable. He should be disowned by all member associations. Sadly, the more likely outcome is an all too familiar one. People will turn a blind eye to it.

But to say racism should be settled by a handshake should be the final straw.

Blatter has risked undermining all the work groups like Kick It Out have done to eradicate racism and he has alienated yet another group in society. In fact, this should have alienated all of society.

His bungling attempts to cover up his comments on the FIFA website and Twitter have only served to expose what he is even more: an arrogant, out of touch bigot who deserves no place in football.

Until serious punishments are handed out to those found guilty of racism, the problem will never go away.

And until idiots like Blatter are erased from the game, situations like this will keep cropping up.

Racism needs to be kicked out. So does Blatter.