FIFA president Gianni Infantino has revealed referees will have the power to abandon matches in the World Cup if there are incidents of racism.
There are fears the tournament in Russia, starting next Friday, could be dogged by discrimination, with England defender Danny Rose telling his family not to travel to avoid being abused.
Infantino says there are measures in place should anything occur during matches and has warned of "serious consequences".
"I wouldn't say that we are concerned about discrimination, human rights and security but we take them very seriously," he said. "We have taken appropriate measure in the preparation process.
"In terms of discrimination we will have clear procedures in place, including a three-step process for referees who can stop, suspend or even abandon a match in case of discrimination.
"We have a monitoring system and then immediate sanctions if something happens, we obviously wish that doesn't happen and everyone has been warned that if it happens there will be serious consequences."
The 21st edition of the tournament in Russia will be the first-ever to use video technology, with the introduction of VAR.
It has been trialled, to varying degrees of success across Europe recently, and Infantino says the time is right to bring it in.
"Football is ready for the introduction of VAR, we have been testing it for the last two years," he added.
"We have been studying it and we are convinced of the benefits of it.
"It will not solve 100 per cent of the issues but it will be a great help to the referees and we have to help the referee if we can.
"In 2018 it's not conceivable that everyone in the stadium or at home knows within seconds if the referee has committed a big mistake, and this can happen because they are human.
"The only one who doesn't know is the referee, not because he didn't want to know but because we prohibited him to know.
"Now we allow him to know and this will bring more justice in the game. The referee will always take the final decision."
RTÉ will provide live coverage of all 64 games across RTÉ2, RTÉ News Now and the RTÉ Player. Over 180 hours of television coverage will be broadcast on RTÉ2 including 56 live games from Russia with eight end of group games streamed live on RTÉ Player and RTÉ News Now.
Meanwhile, the joint North American bid for the 2026 World Cup has denied that United States president Donald Trump's global unpopularity will have a significant impact on next week's vote in Moscow.
Canada, Mexico and the US have teamed up to form the United 2026 bid and they are up against Morocco at the FIFA Congress on June 13.
Strongly favoured by FIFA president Infantino, the United bid's combination of existing infrastructure, huge projected revenues and access to the world's richest market was underlined by a glowing technical assessment last week.
Morocco, on the other hand, was marked down in several categories, most notably the fact it needs to build or renovate 14 stadiums.
This, however, has not translated into an obvious lead for the United bid as the race enters its final week, with many seasoned observers of FIFA politics saying the contest is still too close to call. The reason for this appears largely down to one factor: Trump.
His anti-immigrant rhetoric, America-first stance on issues such as the environment and trade and his decision to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem has infuriated many nations.
Even when Trump has tried to help the bid he has not always succeeded, most notably when he posted a tweet that came across as a clear threat to US allies considering a vote for Morocco.
The U.S. has put together a STRONG bid w/ Canada & Mexico for the 2026 World Cup. It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don’t support us (including at the United Nations)?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 26, 2018
But speaking to reporters in London on Wednesday, US Soccer president Carlos Cordeiro said Trump's name had not even come up in the dozens of meetings he and his United bid co-chairmen have had with FIFA's member associations over the last few months.
"They want to know about visas for their players, staff and fans but they haven't mentioned Trump," said Cordeiro.
He then revealed that Trump wrote to FIFA on May 2 to confirm an earlier promise from the US government that fans, players and staff from around the world will be able to enter the country for the tournament without problems, providing they do not have criminal records.
Sitting alongside Cordeiro were his bid co-chairs, the presidents of the Canadian and Mexican FAs, Steve Reed and Decio de Maria, respectively.
They revealed that any ticket-holder who gets a visa to enter one of the three countries would be given a "fan ID", similar to the one being used in Russia this summer, that would allow free movement between the host nations for the duration of the World Cup.
This, they said, was just one example of the bid's "unity", one of the "three pillars" that underpins their "football for all" motto.
But while there is no debate that the three football federations are working closely together, the Trump factor remains. In the last week there have been further disagreements between the three nations on his proposed border wall between the US and Mexico and steel tariffs.
Cordeiro, however, dismissed these issues as a potential problem in Moscow next week.
"We would not like to be judged on the politics of today," he said. "What we know is that there will be a president in eight years' time and they will have to live up to the commitments made to FIFA today.
"And if FIFA had any problem with these commitments we would have had multiple red marks (in the technical assessment) but we didn't.
"We believe we're stronger as a three than if we were by ourselves."
De Maria agreed, adding: "We share a 2,000 mile border with the US and we have had our differences with them in the past, we have differences with them today and we will have differences tomorrow.
"But the message we are sending is that in terms of football we are united."
