Gordon Taylor: if we are not careful this racism row will set us back years As I said to Sir Alex Ferguson: 'I've been trying to get Rio around the table to articulate his views. He just has his Twitter account, and his texting, and I can't get to him. You can't run the world that way. You have to face up to things. Jason Roberts is on our management committee. I said: 'Articulate what you want. Oh, we are pulling out of Kick It Out. We want to just do anti-racism within the PFA. But we have to do it with the clubs. We have to go forward together. Otherwise, we will be in a little corner of the football world making a big noise and having no impact. They are trying to bite the hand that is helping them. I feel Lord Ouseley [of Kick It Out] and trustees like Garth Crooks, Paul Elliott and Brendan Batson deserve better. Suddenly I've got Herman Ouseley, quite naturally, upset, saying: 'Hang on Gordon, without us, it could be worse. Mark Hughes said racism will always be with us. It may well be but in the 80s football was vanishing into the gutter. People said: 'Gordon, you'll never improve things. But we did. Racism causes world wars, terrible tragedies throughout the world but it is a nettle we have to grasp. Experience has taught me that racism has to be dealt with as a group, a group of footballers or society as a whole. A statesman like Nelson Mandela took everyone with him. Martin Luther King wanted to take everyone with him. Of course, there were militants in their ranks but they knew they had to take everyone with them. That's what I feel. I said to Jason: 'Bring the players with you and we'll talk it through. You don't just talk the talk, and not walk the walk. Look at how much money we spend. Oh, we need to spend more money," they say. Whatever we do, it isn't right for them. To some extent, they feel the PFA can just snap its fingers and get what it wants but it isn't that easy. We work with all the bodies, work with the supporters. Unless we are all together [as a union], how are we going to make progress with the governing bodies on issues like the interview process with the Rooney Rule [meaning that a percentage of black candidates must be on a shortlist for a managerial vacancy]. We want to put a clause about Gross Misconduct in the player's contract, with [club sanctions for] racist behaviour and abuse, so there is no ambiguity. There would have to be a very good reason why he remained at the club. As well as the punitive sanctions, there would be some equality-awareness training in there. "Unless we work with the clubs, how are we going to roll out equality-awareness courses, not just for youngsters and apprentices, but for all players, coaching staff, managers and directors?"" Schoolchildren, too. I went to a Show Racism The Red Card event at Bolton Wanderers. Frank Sinclair said when he was in the FA Cup final with Chelsea he got a bullet through the post. The youngsters from the schools were listening so intently, really understanding the issues of racism. Taylor does understand the frustrations of Ferdinand and Roberts. The Terry case shouldn't have taken that long as it did. I spoke in front of the FA Council saying we needed to do these things more quickly, more efficiently, more transparently. That's where the FA can learn. That's what we said to [FA chairman] David Bernstein but we need to deal with it together, move forward together. Many people are saying it [Terry's ban] is too soft. A clear message needs to go out that if we are asking Uefa and Fifa to be strong on Serbia - whose fans racially abused Danny Rose - then if it happens in our own backyard we have to show there is no room for it, and the penalties match that. I wouldn't say it should be 10-game minimum [ban]. I don't want to make a rod for my own back. But if it has been proved that [racist] language has been used, fines are not as effective as missing games. Taylor felt that the constant delays were damaging. I spoke with Bruce Buck [the Chelsea chairman] at length, saying it is important for Chelsea to be part of the process once the verdict was made, to accept what had happened, and to show yourself as big enough as a club to apologise to the Ferdinand family, which they have now done. Nobody wants to be accused of being racist. It's very damaging so there is a very strong effort made to circle the wagons. There should have been a sincere apology earlier, an acceptance that it was wrong, get some reconciliation and moving on. The constant denials have exacerbated it. And English football risks division.