Yaya Toure hasn't seen much time on the field since Pep Guardiola took over at Manchester City, and it has been his agent, rather than the player himself, making all the headlines for his comments in recent weeks.
Despite that, the player felt compelled to speak out about FIFA's decision to disband their racism task force, declaring their work to be done and that there wasn't a problem to be solved.
Earlier this week, the Task Force wrote to its members to say that the Task Force "completely fulfilled its temporary mission" and "is hereby dissolved and no longer in operation."
On his official website, Toure disagreed quite vigorously with that assertion, and as a consultant to the task force, he felt compelled to speak out as the news broke.
“When I was asked by FIFA to help with the fight against racism in football, I didn’t think twice," read the statement. "I have experienced racism all my life – be that in the streets or in the stadiums. So to help address this was my responsibility – a way of preventing other players and fans from going through the same issues I had found in my career.
“When I received the letter telling me the FIFA task force was to be discontinued I was very disappointed. The letter listed the good work that had been carried out as a result of the task force’s advice and recommendations. So my question is, after failing to deal with racism sufficiently for decades – why stop when something is beginning to work? Are FIFA being complacent ahead of a World Cup in Russia? This makes no sense.
Adding that the task force gave FIFA expertise that it didn't have before, and was beginning to make some headway on the issue, he said: "The task force could question when FIFA were not delivering on it’s [sic] promise to do as much as they could in this area.
“My only hope is that FIFA have thought this through," added Toure. "The letter I received does not fill me with confidence. It will be the fans and players that suffer if FIFA do not get this right.”
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