There was hardly a person among us who wasn't touched by Mbabazi Livingstone's amazing goal and performance on Saturday night against Bray, knowing that he had lost his Brother and Father in Uganda earlier in the week it was an emotional and heartfelt contribution.
Mbabazi is just one of the more remarkable stories from the new foreign legion playing in the Eircom League and he is a player that is already a star in the eyes of most people in Inchicore. However we all know that Ireland has a fair share of problems with a racist minority and unfortunately football is not immune from this disease. The Dundalk board will reportedly issue a statement later today on the racial abuse suffered by Eric Lavine from a tiny section of the Dundalk support in a recent game against Longford at Flancare Park. This follows last year's incident of racial abuse in Longford, this time by a tiny minority of Longford fans aimed at our own Charlie Mbabazi. While the majority of decent Irish fans welcome the opportunity to watch players from foreign fields like Babaz, Wes Charles and Lavine this tiny minority are destroying the image of the game here with their racist chants. Longford acted swiftly to condemn the incident last year and Dundalk appear to be taking the same course, but should it be left to the clubs alone?
Surely its time for the FAI and the Gards to draw up a code of practice for identifying these people and removing them from the game and our grounds for good. This issue won't go away if we continue to ignore it.
Can these people be identified and arrested....or at least banned from football grounds?
