Danny Rose: England star ready to quit football over authorities’ failure to fight racism: ‘I can’t wait to get out’

Danny Rose says that racist abuse means he “cannot wait to see the back of” his time in professional football. The England and Tottenham left-back said that he “just wants to get out of” the game and that the punishments meted out for racist abuse were “a bit of a farce”.

Rose was the victim of racist chants in Podgorica last Monday, an incident that once again brought racism, and the failure of authorities to stop it, back to the top of the agenda. Raheem Sterling, who has spoken out repeatedly about racism this season, called for “real punishment” to be implemented.

After the England win in Montenegro Rose did not speak publicly but on Wednesday night, after Spurs opened their new stadium with a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace, he made his thoughts clear.

Indeed, Rose admitted how racism and politics in the game are making him look forward to his retirement already, at the age of just 28.

“I’ve had enough,” said Rose. “At the minute how I programme myself I just think to myself: ‘I’ve got five or six more 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. It’s just…whatever, isn’t it? I just want to get out of it.”

Rose still enjoys playing football for Tottenham and England, he made clear, but the racism and politics that go along with the game are driving him away from it. “That is how I feel,” Rose said. “I feel I have four, five or six more years left and I just want to enjoy football as much as I can. There is so much politics and whatever in football. And I just can’t wait to see the back of it, to be honest.”

Uefa has traditionally been lax in punishing racist abuse, tending to issue five-figure fines to clubs and associations. Under current rules, a first offence of racism means a partial stadium closure, a second offence means a £42,500 fine.

Rose was disheartened by how soft the punishments are, giving him no confidence that the issue will ever go away. He called for “harsh punishments” if there was any desire for a change. “Obviously it is a bit sad,” Rose said. “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? You see my manager get banned for two games for just being confrontation against Mike Dean at Burnley. But 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. So that’s where we are at in football and until there’s a harsh punishment there’s not must else we can expect.”

Rose made the painful admission that he was “prepared” for the racist abuse in Podgorica, in part because of similar an experience he faced in Serbia during an England under-21 game in 2012. “I was fine, I sort of prepared myself anyway for what happened,” Rose said. “So I was fine. I prepared myself for it, we won and now we just wait for whatever punishment if any punishment happens.

“I played in Serbia [in 2012] and it happened there. So I thought it would be a possibility that it might happen again and it did. I looked up straight away in the first half and I know the exact time it happened in the first half. It didn’t affect my game. 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 that we could move on and get out of Montenegro as quickly as possible.”