Bulgaria 0-6 England: Tyrone Mings speaks to talkSPORT after being racially abused during Euro 2020 qualifier

Tyrone Mings hopes Monday evening's Euro 2020 qualifier against Bulgaria becomes a 'turning point' in racial abuse in football given the shocking scenes in Sofia.

Mings, the Aston Villa star, was along with Raheem Sterling targeted by a section of the home support who made monkey noises.

Some supporters were also pictured doing Nazi salutes throughout the match.

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The game was twice stopped during the first half as part of UEFA's three-step protocol system to deal with racial abuse, and though the chants were less prevalent in the second half, they could still be heard.

England stopped playing when Mings made an official complaint to the assistant referee 28 minutes in, with the centre-back saying, 'hey, did you hear that?', to the official.

Play was stopped for the first time, for six minutes, when Three Lions skipper Harry Kane reported the incident to referee Ivan Bebek.

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In the build-up to the match, England players had spoken about possibly walking off the pitch if they heard racial abuse, and Mings has confirmed discussions were held at half-time over refusing to go back out for the second half.

"We had a conversation regarding did we want to go back out, and everyone made a unified decision to go back out and play," Mings told talkSPORT.

Asked about the decision to keep playing despite the abuse, Mings continued: “I think it was important that we highlighted it [the abuse], because unfortunately there are people that get racially abused who don’t have a voice.

Southgate says England 'very close' to walking off after racist abuse

“So I think it was important for us to highlight it and make sure the appropriate people were aware it was going on.

“But then after that it was important that we just played football. Everybody made the decision and everybody stood together and everybody ultimately came through the game and we were proud of our performance.”

Monday's match is one of the most high-profile incidents of racial abuse in football, and Mings hopes this is the turning point in fixing a problem that has plagued the sport for years.

He finished: "It’s happened before but we have protocols in place which helped throughout the game.

“I mean it’s difficult; I don’t want to categorise the whole country by saying that its racist, but there were obviously elements of the crowd making those chants.

“But the second half was a lot better.

“I don’t know if it was a turning point, but hopefully.”