The racist abuse vented on black English footballers during Monday evening’s match in Bulgaria is completely incompatible with all sport, but much of it has nothing to do with sport (Sofia shame: Racist abuse rains down on England on sickening night for football, 15 October). The game itself is simply the vehicle for the extreme right to gather, and it enables its adherents to shout their racist abuse among a large crowd under the pretence of supporting a football team. The fact that those identified as abusing black players were mainly in one section of the ground – and that many left early as a group once exposed – demonstrates this analysis.

It is certainly not an excuse for Fifa or the Bulgarian football authorities to avoid action; on the contrary, it means that they have to step up their work to identify and to exclude the guilty from all future matches. English clubs that have suffered from this far-right tactic, including my local club, Leeds United, have used television coverage of matches, plus local knowledge, to give a lifetime ban to the individuals involved.

Fifa’s three-step protocol is fine as far as it goes, but it needs to be realised that for those using the match as a cover for their racist chants, abandoning the game would be seen as a victory. A much more in-depth strategy is needed.

Michael Meadowcroft

Leeds

• Any right-minded person would condemn what happened in Sofia on Monday night. As an Evertonian I can still recall the shame that I felt when I witnessed an Everton fan throwing a banana at John Barnes, which he famously back-heeled off the pitch at a Merseyside derby at Goodison Park in 1988 (‘I was the voice of reason on race. I haven’t changed’, 14 October).

English football has come a long way since then, but racism is still something that black players have to suffer at home as well as abroad, as evidenced by the racist abuse that Raheem Sterling endured at Chelsea last season. There is also more subtle racism directed towards black players as they are often subjected to more media scrutiny than their white peers in relation to their salaries and lifestyle.

There is an old saying that football reflects life or society. And this week in particular, as the Home Office releases figures showing a 10% increase in recorded hate crime in England and Wales in 2018-19, with race hate crime accounting for around 75% of those offences, the words stones and glass houses spring to mind as the condemnation of the Bulgarian authorities rings in our ears.

Steve Flatley

York

• I agree with Barney Ronay that the England team can be proud of their grace under pressure after being racially taunted and abused in Sofia (This was not a sporting event. It was an open sore, 15 October). It can surprise no one that overt racism is more prevalent in countries recently liberated from totalitarian rule, because they have had less time to confront and overcome their visceral prejudices than we have in the west. But we all know that racism still bubbles beneath the surface in certain segments of society here.

In my experience British football grounds are well policed by stewards in hi-vis jackets from the local community, who proactively challenge provocative behaviour and remove offenders. This was clearly not the case in Sofia. Ultimately it’s a matter of education – which is a slow process – coupled with rigorously enforced anti-racist legislation.

Stan Labovitch

Windsor

• How comfortably the media and politicians have found it to proclaim and posture about the disturbing and vile racism that interrupted a football match in Bulgaria. And yet our own prime minister – a product of the most elite school in the UK – racially insulted President Obama and referred to Muslim women looking like “letterboxes”. I am black, and no football thug or neo-Nazi ever passed me over for job promotion or gave a grant to their white friends over me. No, it was usually a white “liberal” with an apologetic smile on their face.

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

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