Bengaluru, June 11: The FIFA World Cup 2018 is just around the corner and prior to the start of the event there has been a growing concern about the Russian fans discriminatory chants and behaviours. Russia has a long history of making racist remarks to on-field coloured players and their governing body has been punished several times for that.

Recently the Russian Football Union was fined £22,000 for racist chants by fans during a friendly against France in March. Furthermore, many footballers while playing for their respective clubs in the Russian conditions previously also complained of racial abuse.

Players like Yaya Toure underwent racial abuse while playing for Manchester City against CSKA Moscow in October 2013, while the likes of Samuel Eto'o, Roberto Carlos, Christopher Samba and Peter Odemwingie etc also recounted similar incidents while representing Russian clubs.

Recently, English footballer Danny Rose also insisted that he fears of racial remarks from the crowd and he had advised his family not to travel to Russia due to fears of Racism as he "numb" to racial abuse and doesn't have faith in the governing bodies.

But to fight against the racist odds and to secure a proper regulatory system in the stadium, FIFA now have declared that they have handed powers to the referee to handle the situation with a 'three-step' process which is to stop, suspend or abandon games.

With the rule, the on-field referee will now have the power to stop a game immediately if anything discriminatory from the crowd is observed.

Below we have listed FIFA's three steps to deal with racist chants.

1. If racist chanting or any other signs of racist acts occur during a game, the match official will stop the match and request a public announcement calling for discriminatory behaviour to stop.

2. If that disappoints too, the referee will then suspend the game until the action stops, followed by another message.

3. Ultimately, if the situation still do not resolve, the official will then abandon the match.

Apart from these stringent rules, FIFA will also have their men, three anti-discrimination observers in the stands in every World Cup match who will monitor the behaviour of fans, a method that was trialled during the World Cup qualifying rounds and the Confederations Cup.

With so many preventive measures being taken, it can be expected that the tournament will see a fair and square outcome and will experience a controversy-free competition for which the Russian football has been fighting long and hard.