The problem here is people are rolling two seperate issues into one. England "fans" (which I'll get to my rant about)...and racism.
Racism is not a football problem. It is a societal problem. It's really annoying seeing people trying to boil it down to football fans being racist. Most football fans are not racist. Football actually does a lot more to challenge and combat racism than almost any other sport, profession, or industry in the country. Its the only sport and one of the only careers where a working class kid from an ethnic minority, can have 1exactly the same chance and opportunity as a white kid from a privelidged background. The reason no black English tennis players get racially abused for example, is because you're still not really allowed to be a black English tennis player. Football one of the only industries where black men and women are idolised and seen as role models by society as a whole. It empowers people like Rashford and Sterling to actually speak out on issues and force change through the support football affords them from the general public and society. None of this would be remotely possible if football fans were racist. Football fans are a reflection on society. If you put 50,000 people together, you will get the odd racist. If you put 5,000,000 people together as happens with England games, there will be thousands of "the odd racist"...you only eliminate the problem by tackling it as a societal issue. Not by being a snobbish out of touch prune/lefty warrior who thinks all the racists go to the football games to be racist. The only reason it draws the racists in is because football in this country dares as an industry to be vocal and loud about racial issues. So every racists sees it as a target...other idiots who just want someone to feel as angry as they do about a penalty shootout use racism as a weapon. As long as society has racism it will seep into everything, including football.
The second issue...England fans...so I've been to games at a few tournaments with England now, and obviously live in England, and the conclusion I've drawn is again that there is a BIT of a misconception. When I have been to games abroad, England fans have generally been good natured...drunk and annoying maybe but not really any worse than other sets of fans...the problem is actually more evident here in England...and again its more a societal problem I think. England games during a tournament become the excuse for morons to get drunk, do their lines, and be aggressive about something...and again, instead of 50,000 in a ground, its millions of them, everywhere. Like 20 typical Saturday nights in London all happening at the same time. Or everyone going on their lads holiday abroad at exactly the same time, to exactly the same place. We have a real problem in this country of drinking and going out culture where it seems to be about getting as wrecked as possible, and then becoming an uber confident annoying prick...and it transfers over to England games because they obviously draw a lot of attention. I noticed it in the ground against Germany...that was the first time I've been to an England game and thought "actually, there's a lot of annoying cnuts around"...and it was still a minority, but you know the type of groups of blokes who you encounter on a night out, who you know will kick off if you just stare at them the wrong way or don't find something insulting they say funny. I'm sure you get these types of people in other countries, but I associate it as being an English trait because of how fecking common it is here. I don't think there's this problem of dedicated England fans going round looking for fights or trouble...this is different to the 80s...England fans go to England games to support England...but there is this problem of English people having this culture of getting drunk and being a complete bellend, and when you throw the drama of football into it, then you give all of them their excuse to kick off.