Raheem Sterling has been the face of the campaign fighting to stop the growing racial abuse in English football.

The 2018/19 season has sadly seen a rise in incidents involving supporters up and down the country racially abusing players.

Sterling himself was abused away at Chelsea earlier in the season, with the supporter caught on camera and duly handed a lifetime ban.

However, that kind of punishment has done little to stop the issue and Sterling has now called for far stricter sanctions to be enforced.

The Manchester City winger wants any club found guilty of racial abuse from fans to be handed an automatic nine-point deduction and to play games behind closed door.

Writing in The Times, Sterling stated: "It sounds harsh, but which fan will risk racist behaviour if it might relegate their team or ruin their title bid?

"Small fines do no damage to clubs and countries, but one group of people who do have the money to make them take notice are sponsors. The next time that a club or governing body fails to act appropriately against racism, I would love to see that company pull its money out and make a moral stand.

"I don't know how long it will take for things to change but we have to start now. I don't want the next generation of black players to have to put up with this evil."

Well said, Raheem.

The only way to curb the issue is to make the punishments so severe that a club could receive irreparable damage.

Sadly, that's where the state of the game is at.

Footballers and clubs recently took to social media to voice their concern over abuse aimed at players over various different platforms and called on the authorities to do more.

Sterling finished his piece by writing: "In my opinion, the people who run the game are doing nowhere near enough to solve the problem. And that's not good enough."