Racism, the biggest scourge of all in football, is rearing its ugly head again.  And it stinks.

Blackburn Rovers’ South African striker Benni McCarthy was the victim of ugly abuse during Rovers’ 2-1 UEFA Cup win over Wisla Krakow in Poland on Thursday. However, it’s highly unlikely McCarthy or anyone else will be able to prove that defender Nikola Mijailovic committed what I regard as the most obscene offence in the game.

Of course, the Serbian is almost certainly guilty as alleged - why on earth would McCarthy make up such a claim if it didn’t happen? But proving the abuse is the problem. Just as no-one was able to prove that Italian ‘hero’ Marco Matarazzi hurled racist obsecenities at Zinadine Zidane in the World Cup Final. Hero? For me, Matarazzi is a scumbag -- even though the world’s best lip readers couldn’t establish exactly what the Azzurri defender said that so incensed Zizou.

I mean, Zidane launched that notorious chest-butt purely because he was an innately nasty man, didn’t he? Believe that and you probably think Watford are going to win the Premiership this season.

The racist taunts often come from crowds and players from East European countries - regions where there is little ethnic diversity and almost no blacks. Having little personal knowledge of non-whites, they apparently regard the barracking as an acceptable form of behaviour. In the West, the whole ethos of the game is to stamp racism out, yet we are still besieged by mindless idiots who feel that anybody of different ethnicity -- and blacks in particular -- are acceptable targets for their abuse.

In 2004, Spanish fans taunted black England players Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips in a friendly match in Madrid, while Spain’s coach Luis Aragones reportedly made racist comments about Arsenal’s Thierry Henry. The Spanish Football Association was subsequently fined £44,750 by FIFA -- a pittance which will in no way deter the Iberian racists. Aragones, meanwhile, got away with a 3,000-euro fine. How pathetic!

Carlos Ferreyra Nunez, co-ordinator of Spain's United Against Racism group, said at the time that the problem was widespread in his country. "Racism is a cancer that has touched every aspect of football," he claimed, adding that racist behaviour could be seen "every week and all over the country".

If things are that bad, why on earth did FIFA take such a soft line? What they should have done was to boot Spain out of the European Championships or World Cup. Now that would have had an effect on everyone in the country … and taught the racists a lesson they clearly need.

Of course, racism in football is nothing new. Back in the 1930s, the late, great Dixie Dean - who was dark-skinned - had comments aimed at him as he left the pitch at half-time during an Everton match in London. Dean reportedly punched the offender before disappearing into the players’ tunnel - and was promptly congratulated by a policeman who saw the incident. That was long before I was born, and indeed non-white players were such a rarity in my childhood that they were a fascinating addition to any team - with no semblance of any prejudice.

The first black player I saw in the flesh was a little South African inside forward called Steve Mokone, who joined Cardiff City for the start of the 1959-60 season. Although he played only three games for the first team, he was the catalyst for the Bluebirds winning promotion to the old First Division that year - he scored after five minutes on his debut in the season’s opener against Liverpool and Cardiff went on to win 3-2.

Black players at other clubs - guys like Lindy Delaphena at Middlesbrough and Albert Johanneson at Leeds - were such a rarity that they were huge celebrities in the game, better known than almost any white player. Delaphena, a Jamaican, was in fact the first non-white ever to play in the English First Division (for Portsmouth in the late 1940s) and any prejudice against him was reportedly limited to his performances. If he played well, the fans loved him - if he had a bad game, then he became ‘‘that f***ing n***er’’.

John Barnes, who had bananas thrown at him at Highbury early in his Liverpool career - reckons that when black players retire, their chances of getting jobs in management are few and far between. Even if they do manage to get a job, he says, they aren’t given a second chance.

So how can we stop the racism, both on and off the field? Easy - just kick offending clubs out of whatever competition they are taking part in at the time of the incident. And any player proven to have made racist comments to or about an opponent should be banned for a very long time -- maybe even for life.

I know we’d be running the risk of players making up claims to get opponents they regarded as particularly obnoxious into trouble. But then, would anyone want a fellow player kicked out of the game for something he didn’t do, however much he disliked him?

Discrimination in management is something far more difficult to deal with. It’s the same as a high-street employer who rejects a black applicant for a job -- he’ll always find another reason to cover up his prejudice. But if it is ever proven that a football club has rejected a black managerial applicant because of his ethnicity, then the authorities must hit the offenders with a ton of bricks.

One thing is abundantly clear. If the Let’s Kick Racism Out Of Football campaign is to succeed, then the football authorities must make the penalties fit the crime.

They’ve had long enough to sort it out, for God’s sake.