Chelsea will offer supporters banned for anti-semitism the chance to visit Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Spring next year.

As part of a long-term initiative to combat anti-semitism, announced by the club in January, supporters barred from games for racist behaviour can reduce their bans by completing educational courses – which may include a trip to the second world war camp in Poland.

The initiative is being spearheaded by Blues owner Roman Abramovich, who is Jewish, and chairman Bruce Buck.

A Chelsea delegation attended the annual March of the Living at Auschwitz in April and, in June, in 150 members of the official supporters' club joined staff on a trip to Auschwitz.

The club hopes to organise the first educational trip to the death camp next Spring, when it re-opens after winter.

In September last year, Chelsea condemned sections of their supporters for anti-semitic chanting towards rivals Tottenham in a game at Leicester, while a report on a Jewish website said one fan was left "disgusted" by chanting from fellow Blues supporters during the 4-1 defeat at Watford in February.

Buck told the Sun newspaper: “If you just ban people, you will never change their behaviour. This policy gives them the chance to realise what they have done, to make them want to behave better.

"It took us five years to find that out. A year ago, Roman sat down with senior people at the club and had a conversation. He had noticed an increase in anti-Semitism around the world and directed us to see what we could do implement a long-term project to combat it.

"In the past, we would take them from the crowd and ban them, for up to three years. Now we say ‘You did something wrong. You have the option: 'We can ban you or you can spend some time with our diversity officers, understanding what you did wrong’.

"It is hard to act when a group of 50 or 100 people are chanting. That’s virtually impossible to deal with or try to drag them out of the stadium. But if we have individuals that we can identify, we can act.

"The trips to Auschwitz were really important and effective and we will consider more as well as other things that will affect people. We want to convince other clubs to do their own things and make a real dent in what is still a problem."

As part of the Blues' initiative, Holocaust survivors have given talks to the club's first-team squad at Cobham, their Surrey training base.

Through the campaign, Chelsea are working with the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Jewish Museum, the Community Security Trust, Kick It Out, the World Jewish Congress, the Anne Frank House and Maccabi GB.