That he is a black man charged with the awesome responsibility of leading the fight to eradicate racism and other forms of discrimination from football is purely by accident.

FIFA president, Joseph ‘Sepp’ Blatter, recognising the severity of the racist scourge sweeping the game, knew straight away that he needed a special individual to spearhead a task force to tackle the issues.

When he selected the astute Jeffrey Webb as anti-racism and discrimination top cop, Blatter did not see the colour of the Caymanian’s skin. The FIFA boss wanted an individual who was courageous, honourable and uncompromising and he found his vice-president to be the perfect fit.

“We wish him well and he will do the job and that personality is your own president, Mr Jeffrey Webb,” said Blatter as he addressed the 35th CONCACAF Congress in Panama in April, giving a ringing endorsement of the CONCACAF boss.

It’s a job that many would not readily accept for its complex nature and one that will clearly present a minefield for those who have to detect, investigate and prosecute suspected offenders.

Racism and other forms of discrimination have become a high-profile problem in football, and will no doubt require a strong hand in efforts to reduce its occurrences at the very least or to eradicate altogether, therefore the agency fighting it must have teeth.

Proposals from the Webb-led FIFA Task Force on Racism and Discrimination received a big boost when the 209-member football constituency unanimously backed a resolution at the recent FIFA Congress in Mauritius that will see tougher sanctions against offenders.

“The resolution was overwhelmingly supported (and) this is important if we are going to take a zero tolerance level in eradicating racism and discrimination from our football… we adopted a resolution to create various standards and processes (in this fight),” said Webb in a Jamaica Observer exclusive.

Webb, who is celebrating one year in office at the helm of CONCACAF, said while the demons of discrimination will never be removed from the broader society, football is determined to give it a big kick where it will perhaps hurt the most.

” For us in football we believe that we have no space for it, no place for it in our stadiums, our locker rooms or our fields of play,” he said.

Webb, who was in Jamaica recently for the World Cup qualifier between the Reggae Boyz and Mexico, noted that fines alone will not be a deterrent to those inclined to discriminate, therefore tougher measures have to be employed to send a strong message.

“In recent years we have been using fines to deal with racism and so forth. We find that punishment by way of fines have not been a deterrent, but we have laid down sanctions that will see points being docked, relegation for teams, and this will obviously send a strong message that says, ‘look we are committed to this process’,” said the 47-year-old banker.

A recent example that fines alone won’t be able to put a dent in the practice happened when the Italian FA imposed a Euro 50,000 (US$65,000) on Roma Football Club when visiting fans hurled racial abuse at AC Milan black Italian striker, Mario Balotelli in a Serie A match at the San Siro last month.

Both Blatter and Webb have come out publicly to state that the fine was not sufficient for the offence and the matter will be further dealt with.

“If, of course, you break these rules and regulations, then these are the measures you could possibly face… so I think we sent a strong message that not only FIFA, but FIFA members globally want to eradicate racism from football,” Webb said.

Parallel to the detection, investigation and prosecution portfolio, Webb says that education and prevention will be critical components as well.

From a policing perspective, the CONCACAF president explained that individuals referred to as anti-racism and discrimination officers will be assigned to games involving teams with a bad reputation of discrimination.

“One of the things we are going to be doing is assign at high-risk games anti-racism and discrimination officers, and they will of course be a part of the delegation such as match commissaries , referees assessors and so forth and they will have specific responsibilities in looking at incidents in the stadiums and reporting on those incidents.

“They will then later be required to provide a much more detailed report to the disciplinary bodies who would then be able to decide if there should be further investigation and what sanctions, if any, should be applied,” he noted.

While racism in football is a recognised global problem, the most infamous cases of it have occurred in Europe, and are more pronounced at the club level.

“Yes it is more pronounced in some places, and for us in the Caribbean we live in peace and harmony (for the most part) and I don’t think as a people we have experienced too much racism, like other places of the world have, so definitely it’s more pronounced in other areas,” said Webb, without singling out problem regions.

He said FIFA’s approach to the problem has zero-tolerance status, therefore no case of racism in particular and discrimination in general will be too small to attack and squash.

“We have isolated incidents in CONCACAF, and in those isolated incidents that we have had the national associations have dealt with them, but the education programme will be put in place globally, because whether or not we have a problem with racism, we must have an education campaign to prevent things from happening, and we have to be proactive to have that campaign,” Webb outlined.

The FIFA Disciplinary Code, which describes the sanctions incurred as a result of violations of the FIFA Statutes, applies to every match and competition organised by FIFA.

Furthermore, the Disciplinary Code must be obeyed by all the associations and their respective members, including clubs, officials, players, match officials as well as any other persons FIFA admits to a match or competition, including spectators.