Football has turned a blind eye for too long on racism, according to a German researcher who has called for tougher sanctions against clubs while offenders should be treated in a different way. “What we see in football is not only a problem for society as a whole, but also has to do with football itself,” racism researcher Lorenz Narku Laing from the Protestant University of Bochum said. “In this social arena nothing has been done about racism for far too long, it has been tolerated for decades, almost normalised. “We really need to think about whether matches should be abandoned and ruled a d…