Louis Saha wants football clubs to be hit with multimillion-pound fines if their fans are found guilty of racist abuse.

The problem of racism in football reared its ugly head again last weekend when a fan threw a banana at Brazilian wing-back Dani Alves during Barcelona’s win at Villarreal.

Alves’s response — to peel and take a bite of the banana before carrying on with play — sparked a show of solidarity from his peers, who started posting pictures of themselves with bananas on social media websites.

Saha, who was racially abused during his playing career in England and while at Lazio, thinks the banana picture campaign, led by Barca and Brazil team-mate Neymar, somewhat trivialises the issue.

The former Manchester United striker thinks a better way to combat the issue would be if football took its lead from the US National Basketball Association, which banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and fined him $2.5 million (£1.5m) for making a racist remark on tape.

Saha said: “Football needs to start handing out those kind of fines.

“And believe me, people would change their behaviour if that happened. Right now (the authorities) are scared.

“If (big fines) can be handed out to clubs whose fans are racially abusive then let’s do it.

“That would be a big message to the world that this is not acceptable.”

Uefa and Fifa have increased punishments for racist behaviour in recent years but the banana-throwing incident in Spain shows racial discrimination is still a problem in football.

Saha hopes people do not forget there is a serious message behind the social media campaign.

“I am happy for this reaction but I dislike the fact that we laugh about it,” added Saha. “It’s not funny at all.

“It looks like everyone is saying, ‘we can’t change anything, so let’s laugh about it’.”

Saha was racially abused twice during his four-year spell at Everton — first from the stands in 2011 and later that year on Twitter.

The 35-year-old thinks instances of racism are becoming more rare in the English game but he believes the problem is still prevalent in parts of continentel Europe.