World Cup: England's Rose tells family not to come due to racism in Russia

June 6 (UPI) -- English defender Danny Rose told his family not to come to Russia for the 2018 World Cup.

He did so over fears that they would be racially abused by fans, according to the BBC and the Evening Standard.

Rose told the BBC he was racially abused by fans in 2012 when playing for England's under-21 team against Serbia. The 27-year-old said he didn't want to be worrying about his family's safety.

"I'm not worried for myself," Rose told the Evening Standard. "But I've told my family I don't want them going out there because of racism and anything else that may ­happen. I don't want to be worrying when I'm trying to prepare for games for my family's safety. If anything ­happens to me, it wouldn't affect me like it would if my family had been abused. I'm fine with whatever may or may not happen, and I like to think I'll be able to deal with it in the right way." 

"My dad's really upset. I could hear it in his voice. He said he may never get a chance again to come and watch me in a World Cup. That was emotional, hearing that. It's really sad. It's just how it is. Somehow Russia got the World Cup and we have to get on with it.

FIFA recently fined the Russia Football Union more than $30,000 for racist chanting from fans during Russia's friendly against France in March in Saint Petersburg.

"FIFA has a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination and has been implementing a series of measures to fight discrimination and promote diversity, including an anti-discrimination monitoring system, which has been active since 2015, to observe and report on all 871 matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers and all matches of the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup," FIFA said in a statement, regarding the fine.

"At its tournaments, including the 2018 FIFA World Cup, FIFA has also introduced a three-step procedure in case of discriminatory incidents, which allows referees to actively intervene to make the discriminatory behavior stop."

England players have met to discuss what they should do if they face racism during the World Cup, according to the BBC.

England Battles Costa Rica in a friendly at 3 p.m. Thursday at Elland Road in Leeds, England. The squad's next match comes in the group stage of the World Cup against Tunisia at 2 p.m. June 18 at Volgograd Arena in Volgograd, Russia.