Fifa president Sepp Blatter says Roma fine is 'not acceptable'

Fifa president Sepp Blatter has criticised the decision to merely fine Roma for their fans' racist chanting during a Serie A match with AC Milan.

Play in Sunday's 0-0 draw was stopped for about two minutes when chants were aimed at Milan's black players.

The Italian Football Federation fined the club 50,000 euros (£42,000).

But Blatter told Fifa's website: "They have not made any investigation of what happened. Just to give a pecuniary sanction is not valid, not acceptable."

The game was temporarily brought to a halt at the start of the second half after an announcement was made to supporters, ordering them to cease their behaviour.

Roma released a statement on Monday condemning the actions of their supporters, saying the club was "committed to facing this issue head-on".

However, Blatter was not happy with the response from the Italian Football Federation.

"What is most surprising and is not understandable is that the disciplinary committee of the Italian Football Federation has taken a decision, not even 24 hours after the event, by just imposing a fine," he said.

"You will always find money. What is 50,000 euros for such an incident? I'm not happy and I will call the Italian Federation. That's not a way to deal with such matters."

Former Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli, ex-Portsmouth midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng and defender Kevin Constant were part of the Milan team, with the governing body of the Italian league's judgement stating three unnamed players had been abused.

In January, a friendly between Milan and Pro Patria was suspended because of racist chants aimed at Boateng. In April, Juventus were fined 30,000 euros (£25,700) for their fans' racist abuse of AC Milan players.

Roma's match in Milan was the first time in Italian football that play had been temporarily stopped and re-started.

Blatter added: "Lessons have not been learned. It is incredible that we had such incidents, especially in the Italian Serie A, in the San Siro between AC Milan and Roma - a very important match."

In the aftermath of the tie between Milan and Pro Patria, Fifa created a special taskforce to tackle the issue.

The group, whose members include Boateng and Premier League referee Howard Webb, met on Monday and the world governing body has since published an outline of proposed sanctions for clubs and individuals found guilty of "racist or discriminative acts".

These will include having an official at the stadium tasked to spot "acts of discrimination", creating a sliding scale of punishments from fines to playing games behind closed doors and the creation of "a concrete action plan" by all bodies describing how they will try to fight racism.