Romelu Lukaku's move to Inter Milan has been met by vile, unacceptable racism from some involved with Italian football.  

The Belgian striker was abused by Cagliari fans earlier this month during his side's Serie A fixture at Sardegna Arena.

When Lukaku stepped up to take a penalty, some supporters behind the goal could be heard directing monkey noises towards him. 

The actions of those individuals have been met with criticism, but it doesn't seem that enough is being done in Italy to sort the problem out. 

And the shocking racist abuse of Lukaku continued this weekend, with an Italian football pundit Luciano Passirani making vile remarks live on TV following Inter's win against Udinese. 

"I don't see in the Italian league a player like Lukaku in any team, not in AC Milan, Inter, Rome, Lazio," the 80-year-old pundit said during an appearance on TopCalcio24. 

"He's one of the strongest and I like him a lot because he's one of the strongest, he's at least twice as strong as [Duvan] Zapata from Atalanta.

"These players have something more than the others, these are the guys who make the goals and drag the team. 

"If they go one-on-one with you you're dead, you fall to the ground. The only way to out-muscle him is to give him ten bananas to eat." 

Per The Sun, Passirani was quickly interrupted before he could finish his point and apologised soon after, suggesting that he was trying to make a joke and didn't intend his comments to be racist. 

No matter what his intention was, this is yet another indication that racism in Italian football is a very deep issue and sadly, it's probably not going to be solved anytime soon. 

TopCalcio24 director Fabio Ravezzani appeared on-air almost immediately after the incident to reiterate Passirani's apology and he later confirmed that the pundit has been fired. 

"Mr Passirani is 80 years old and to compliment Lukaku he used a metaphor that turned out to be racist," he said.

"I think it was a terrible lack of momentary lucidity. I cannot tolerate any kind of errors, even if momentary."