Danny Rose "can't wait" to retire due to racism

England and Tottenham Hotspur defender has hit out at football’s governing bodies for not handing suitable punishment to clubs and countries who fail to tackle racism in stadiums.

The 28-year-old also explained that he longs for retirement after being the target of racist abuse on international duty and hearing about the incident in Italy regarding Moise Kean, branding the entire situation a “farce”.

‘I’ve had enough’, said Spurs’ number three. ‘At the minute, I programme myself to think, “I’ve got five or six years left in football and I just can’t wait to see the back of it”. Seeing how things are done in the game at the minute, I just want to get out of it.

‘That’s just how I feel. I’ve five or six years left and I just want to enjoy football as much as I can. There’s so much politics and whatever in football and I just can’t wait to see the back of it, to be honest.’

Rose stayed silent in the days after he was subjected to racist chants and gestures from Montenegro fans in England’s win in the Euro 2020 qualifiers, on which he says: ‘I thought it would be a possibility it might happen again. So I sort of prepared for it and, yes, it happened.’

‘I looked up straight away in the first half. I know the exact time it happened. It didn’t affect my game. I was fine.

‘Had we not been winning, the yellow card I got at the end might have been a red one. But yes, I’m fine. I prepared myself for it, we won and now we just wait for whatever punishment, if any punishment happens.’

UEFA are currently investigating the chants made by Montenegro fans and a decision will be made, however Rose feels that not enough is done by footballing authorities to tackle the issue.

‘Obviously it is a bit sad. But when countries only get fined what I’d probably spend on a night out in London, what do you expect? When the punishment is not as harsh, what do you expect?

Rose feels that racism is treated as less of a crime compared to managers criticizing referees, saying: ‘You see my manager at Spurs, Mauricio Pochettino, get banned for two games when he has just been in a confrontation with Mike Dean at Burnley. And, yet, a country can only get fined a little bit of money for being racist. It’s just a bit of a farce at the minute. Until there’s a harsh punishment there’s not much else we can expect.’

When talking about his silence after the Montenegro fixture, Rose said that he “wasn’t upset and didn’t want the focus to be on me”. ‘I just wanted everybody to focus on a great week we’d had with England. We scored ten goals and it was a great performance over two games. I’m a big boy now and I know that three points are obviously not the most important thing when you’re going through something like that, but I just wanted the team to get three points so we could move on and get out of Montenegro as quickly as possible.’

Both Rose’s international and club managers have stated that they would bring their players off the pitch if future racist incidents arise involving their respective teams, and Rose said that he spoke to Gareth Southgate about the chants after the game had ended.

‘I spoke to Gareth after the game and he wasn’t aware of it. I didn’t mention it at half-time so he wasn’t aware of what was happening until he heard it right at the end.

‘The manager was a bit upset. He told us it was the first time he’d been involved with something like that and he didn’t know what the right course of action was. He said he was fully behind me if we wanted to walk off. I just wanted to get the three points and get out of there as quickly as possible.’

The latest racist incident took place in Italy when Juventus player Moise Kean was on the receiving end of abuse from Cagliari fans, with teammate Leonardo Bonucci quoted as saying after the game that “the blame was 50-50” between Kean and the fans, much to the anger of onlookers across the globe.

It is widely accepted by fans and pundits that racism has no place in football and that anyone who partakes in such a disgusting act should be punished severely, however as Rose said, only the governing bodies can do what’s necessary. Until organizations take racism seriously, nothing will change.