Once again Italian football is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. About two weeks ago, Ghana’s Sulley Muntari walked off the pitch in protest at racial behavior by soccer fans targeted towards him.‍‍

But it is not just in Italy that this is an issue, as CGTN's Dan Williams reports. In Spain, there have been numerous incidents that have tarnished the game's reputation too.

Just a few years ago, Dani Alves, then at Barcelona, had bananas thrown at him during a match and famously took a bite out of one of them. That picked up interest in the media and put the issue on the front pages. And there have been others, not least Papa Diop - while he was playing for Levante - who danced around in front of supporters who had been aiming monkey chants at him.

Those incidents and others led commentators at the time to claim racism in the game in Spain was endemic. Now, although some improvements have been made, there are organizations that believe not enough is being done to kick racism out of the game.

"I think that the authorities all over the world and in Europe in particular must first reinforce the legislation along with running permanent awareness and education campaigns for and by citizens to try and prevent this type of conduct. We have to de-legitimize racist conduct and de-legitimize violence," said Estaban Ibarra, activist from the Movement against Intolerance.

Recent incidents have once again raised the potential of a players' strike in order to further highlight the issue. That is something that the Movement against Intolerance would strongly support.      

"Yes, without a moment's hesitation. I think that a players' strike would be a great initiative because it would demonstrate to all of society that footballers stand against the injustice of racism and for the necessity of defending human dignity and universal rights that exist for all people," said Ibarra.

Muntari is not the first player to walk off a pitch because he was racially abused. Kevin Prince Boateng, a former teammate of Muntari at AC Milan, did just that in 2013. Speaking to CGTN earlier this season, he noted racism was still very much present in the game: "It is still there every day... We have to work on it every day. If you want to do something better or if you want to help the world for racism, you have to do it every day. We have so much power to do that but we don't use our power."

Boateng also questioned why world football's governing body FIFA disbanded their anti-racism task force. FIFA made that decision last September, stating at the time that the task force had completed its mission. The events of the past week suggest that is not the case.