Gerrard makes racism vow

Skipper to back team-mates if they are targeted by fans

By Pete O'Rourke - Follow me: @skysportspeteo. Last Updated: June 10, 2012 7:24pm

Steven Gerrard: Would support any of his team-mates if they were the targets of racist abuse a

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England captain Steven Gerrard insists he would support any of his team-mates if they were the targets of racist abuse at Euro 2012.

Roy Hodgson's men get their campaign off and running against France on Monday in Donetsk with fears some of England's players could be targeted after Holland's black players were subjected to racist abuse during an open training session in Poland earlier this week.

Czech defender Theodor Gebre Selassie has confirmed he was the victim of monkey chants during Friday night's Group A game in in Wroclaw.

The issue of racism has hung over the whole tournament with Manchester City

and Italy forward Mario Balotelli

claiming he would walk off the pitch if he is abused by fans.

Gerrard

admits he would not encourage any player to walk off the pitch, but that he make the referee aware of any incident and leave it up to UEFA to take action.

Support

"I wouldn't encourage them to walk off the pitch, but if a player did come to me and say they had been racially abused I would take it to the referee and they would then take it up with UEFA," said Gerrard.

"I would certainly support any of the players who came to me."

Hodgson also backed UEFA to deal with any racism issues and admits he will wait on them to give them any guidelines on what they should do if they are confronted with any racism

"I have great faith in UEFA," noted Hodgson. "It will be up to them to give us, the FA and the football team the guidelines in certain situations."