Tyrone Mings hails England togetherness after racist chants overshadow Bulgaria win
Villa defender Tyrone Mings believes he and his England team-mates showed ‘great togetherness’ after he was subjected to racist abuse on his international debut.
Mings started for England but the Three Lions’ 6-0 victory over Bulgaria was massively overshadowed by shocking monkey chants from the home crowd.
The match was halted twice in the first half with Mings subjected to some of the most vitriolic abuse. Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford were also targeted. Mings complained to the linesman after one incident and boss Gareth Southgate started the UEFA protocol on racist abuse as the chanting continued.
It is understood the game would have been abandoned had there been another stoppage due to the chanting.
Mings – who had a superb debut on the pitch – admitted his first game for the Three Lions had been overshadowed.
The 26-year-old said: “It was a great occasion. I made my England debut, slightly overshadowed by a few disappointing chants.
“It was quite clear to hear on the pitch but we showed a great response. We showed a good togetherness and ultimately let the football do the talking, which hopefully the higher powers will hopefully deal with the incidents which happen. We couldn’t do much more than we did on the pitch.”
Asked if he thought the anti-racism protocol had been effective, Mings added: “Yes absolutely I think it was effective. I don’t know if certain members of the crowd were removed.
“Obviously there was an announcement went out. I think whatever the protocol was and the steps that were taken definitely helped and we made a decision at half time to come out and play the game which we thought was the right decision and if anything else happened then we would have taken appropriate action.
“We were ultimately delighted with the result at the end.”
He added: “Everybody was consulted (at half-time) management staff players and we all made a decision that we were happy to go out and play the game.”
FA chairman Greg Clarke called on UEFA to hold a full and proper investigation into the racism incidents.
“I would like to see a very stringent review by UEFA because I know they take racism very seriously,” he told ITV.
“If they have zero tolerance to racism then one person making monkey chants is the same as 100 people making monkey chants.
“We have to address that at UEFA but, to be perfectly frank, we need to address it in England. We shouldn’t take the moral high ground.
“We should join a movement to drive racism out of our game and have zero tolerance for it.”
