With the World Cup kicking off last night, the vice-president of Fifa’s anti-discrimination taskforce Jeffrey Webb feels that teams should be kicked out of the tournament if their fans or players commit racist offences.

Webb wants football to follow the lead of the NBA, after they banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life for making racist remarks.

When asked if bans should be introduced to football he said: “They have to. The NBA set a new standard and I applaud them. They made a swift and concise decision — we need to do the same.

“We must have a zero tolerance.

“I’m clearly hoping that Fifa is going to make a stand and our disciplinary bodies and individuals are going to make the tough decisions and stop talking and start taking action.”

Fifa introduced tougher laws over racism and anti-discrimination in 2013 but Webb feels there still isn’t enough being done on a national or regional level.

“We’ve got to get the national associations and confederations around the world to start implementing [harsher penalties].

“They really haven’t started implementing them. The level of fines we still continue to see are not really going to have an impact.”

Webb also distanced himself from Sepp Blatter’s comments that British allegations surrounding corruption over Qatar’s 2022 World Cup bid were motivated by racism.

He added: “I don’t share that view at all. Obviously events have transpired in Fifa over recent years and the congress has in the past two years implemented various reforms.

“The credibility of the game is very important. It’s paramount. We cannot afford to lose the credibility or integrity of Fifa, whatever it takes to restore that and to turn that around.”