CWMBRAN Town have called on the Football Association of Wales to tackle racism after claiming assistant manager Sean Wharton was subject to racial abuse at a league match at Bangor City.

Former Sunderland midfielder Wharton was the target for a Bangor supporter who was making monkey gestures, a recognised racist action, highlighted at a recent England international match in Spain, when home supporters were making the noises and gestures towards England's black players.

The coach revealed that he did not raise the alarm during the game because he didn't want to take anything away from the team.

Wharton told the Argus: "I didn't want to say anything because the lads were doing so well (they were 3-0 up at the time) I didn't want the headlines to be taken up by this guy.

"But it is a four and a half hour journey back from there and I had time to really think about it and decided that I had to speak up.

"I owe it to my own kids and to other black players who have to go up there and be subjected to that sort of thing."

Wharton, who made more than 150 appearances for the Crows in two spells before hanging up his boots two years ago, revealed that this was not the first time he has been subjected to abuse at Bangor and that in fact, it has been happening for years.

He said: "It has been happening to me for years, mostly in north Wales and at Bangor especially and I always go up there with a degree of apprehension.

"I am not singling out Bangor as a club because this is not just there, it is an issue that should be tackled at every ground in Wales.

"The FAW is trying to promote the Welsh Premier League in line with the Premiership and the Nationwide League and they have spoken up on this issue, it is about time they showed just where they stand on it.

"I work in social services and we have several equal opportunities and it is sometimes easy to pay lip service to these type of initiatives, we have to know that the FAW are serious about dealing with racism in football."

Cwmbran have voiced concern over the time take to respond to the complaint but Welsh Premier League secretary John Deakin said: "We are dealing with it promptly, notwithstanding the fact that I have been off sick in the last week.

"We have written to Bangor and they are going to send up a report into the allegations of racist behaviour and we will be acting on it as a matter of importance.

"It will be passed to the FAW disciplinary committee and also the League and we can impose financial penalties and insist that the club put up posters and notices in their programs to act of this type of behaviour.

"We would hope that the club also take the action of banning anyone involved in this sort of abuse because we obviously deplore any kind of racism.

He added: "We have backed various campaigns such as Give Racism the Red Card and Kick Racism out of Football and when we had a similar incident a few years ago at Caernarfon, it was stamped out fairly successfully."

Bangor City secretary Alun Griffiths said his club were taking the allegation seriously and were investigating the matter. He said: "I can't comment fully until we conduct our investigation. We have not had a home game since the Cwmbran game so I have not had a chance to talk to fans yet but will be doing so tomorrow.

"A full report will be sent to the league but I have to stress that we are not a racist club. I think this is an individual case and if someone has acted in this way, I will discuss the matter with the chairman and the president and it is more than likely he would be banned."