Football pundit Shaka Hislop has sided with UEFA regarding their response to the formation of the wildly unpopular European Super League (USL), but characterised Europe’s football governing body as hypocritical for its relatively soft stance on racism that continues to thrive within the sport.

The 52-year-old Trinidadian, a pundit for ESPN FC, was speaking about the proposed breakaway Super League involving 12 elite clubs across Europe and UEFA’s reaction to the announcement.

In all, 20 clubs including the founding members – Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham from England; Juventus, AC Milan, and Inter Milan from Italy and Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid from Spain – were expected to participate in midweek fixtures with all participating clubs continuing to compete in their respective national leagues, preserving, they said, the traditional domestic match calendar which remains at the heart of the club game.

However, the announcement of the move has been met with backlash from the leadership of the respective domestic leagues, UEFA, FIFA and fans alike. FIFA and UEFA have threatened to ban all the clubs from their domestic leagues and the players from competing in their domestic competitions and the World Cup.

Despite court action seeking injunctions against punitive actions, cracks seem to be appearing among the breakaway clubs with Chelsea, Manchester City and Atletico, reportedly considering pulling out.

However, Hislop, who played for Newcastle and West Ham in the English Premier League, took UEFA and FIFA to task for not being as forceful in the fight against racism that has plagued the sport.

“There is something that I need to address here and get off my chest. On the one hand I applaud UEFA’s strong response, and agree with them. It shows that UEFA are capable and willing to send a strong response based on little more than speculation and circumstantial evidence when it directly challenges their power structure, the monopoly that they hold over football,” he said during a discussion on ESPN earlier today.

“On the other hand, we are two weeks out from Ondrej Kudela and Glen Kamara suspended over that racism row.”

He was referring to the 10-match ban imposed on Kudela, who is white, after the player hurled racist abuse at Kamara, who is black, during Rangers’ Europa League match against Slavia Prague on March 18. Kamara was banned for three matches for physically assaulting Kudela in retaliation.

The 10-match ban was considered by many to be laughable given the consistency with which these incidents occur. Some pundits, like Hislop, believe much stiffer penalties need to be imposed on players who racially abuse players of colour.

Hislop continued: “So, at least we now know that FIFA can take strong unilateral action, propose banning players from European and World Cup action, yet when faced with the issue of addressing racism in the game, they seem to lose their voice.

“So, on behalf of Glen Kamara and every single black player who has been racially abused, and will be abused playing this game we love, I want to seriously ask where is this backbone from UEFA?”