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RYG: What lessons can we learn from those who have refused to play games where people are excluded?

LHO: I think the situation for us has always been that if people are going to seek to exclude others, then we deny them the opportunities. I don't mean we deny young people from playing sport, but I think people who organise sport have to recognise that we're in a world where we're trying to encourage and achieve inclusiveness. We've got to find ways to engage with others.

Some of the things that we've done through Kick it Out, for instance, is bring refugee communities together. People in Britain who were war refugees from Iraq and Iran are now playing football together, and getting to know more about each other, in a much more friendly environment.

I think it's very important that we see sport as encouraging inclusiveness. Anyone who seeks to exclude others for unreasonable or non justifiable reasons then they need to be denied the opportunities to present their sport, and to participate in their sport. There are clubs who've been thrown out of local leagues because of their bad behaviour, misconduct and abuse.

RYG: When teams are playing and hear that some of their players are being insulted on the pitch, do they ever say they will stop playing until the insults stop?

LHO: I think we've reached a real tipping point. A few years ago, as part of Kick it Out, we were arguing that referees, particularity in big games but also in local games, have a responsibility to tell someone, like the ground security people, where the problems are of people abusing players and security need to deal with it or else the referee will take the players off.

That has happened in a couple of European games as we've started to hot up the campaign, but what we've found, for example, is that the black players who felt insulted were reluctant to speak out because they thought there would be a backlash against them. Some of them were even saying that if the abuse got too much they would walk off, but they also knew that they would get the backlash of criticisms and it would be counter-productive.

So we felt that others have to take responsibility, managers and captains. The critical tipping moment was when Arsene Wenger said that his players experience so much abuse that he's not going to tolerate it in future. He will take his team off the pitch. Then, when David Beckham was captain of England he said that he's not going to put with it on behalf of his players. He would walk off.

It's not the black players now who've taken the responsibilities, it's their colleagues and the management saying that they are not going to put up with it. That made a lot of difference because people then woke up and took notice. Arsen Wenger and David Beckham saying that they would take their teams off made all the difference. Suddenly people were saying we can't put up with this anymore, we've got to make sure that we're going to punish clubs or national associations who are not doing sufficient to stop their fans from abusing others.

RYG: That can translate into real life as well. If you hear friends or fellow pupils in the playground being abusive or insulting someone, you can make a change just by standing up and saying that this is not the way to treat people? You expect respect for all.

LHO: I think it's very important that people stand up and say that they're not going to put up with unacceptable behaviour. We've seen the real transformation in grounds, with the stewards working with the police having had proper training. People are no longer afraid to complain about abuse and will now call a steward over who will take action.

We're getting more families into grounds, mothers as well as children, and people can always report incidents after matches. Especially in all-seaters as if you've got seat numbers, you can report it and very often action will be taken. People may be warned, be told that any future misconduct and they'll be out. If you take any reprisals against anyone around you, the police will be involved. The whole process has been transformed.

People are much more prepared to stand up and be counted and say that they're not prepared to put up with bad behaviour.