Yahoo – AFP,
May 6, 2014
 |
| UEFA blasts banana, monkey abuse in Spain (AFP) |
Spain's
Football League followed suit and warned of sanctions for racist behaviour,
while announcing compulsory training for all its member clubs to avoid a repeat
of the same behaviour.
Just a week
after a fan threw a banana at Barcelona's Brazilian defender Dani Alves,
another player, Levante's Senegalese midfielder Pape Diop, was subjected to
monkey taunts on Sunday.
"UEFA
and its president Michel Platini strongly condemn all forms of discrimination
including recent racist behaviour of fans in Spain," Platini's spokesman
Pedro Pinto said in a message on Twitter.
"UEFA
has tough rules and sanctions against all forms of discrimination for all of
its competitions," he added.
"Where
instances occur outside of our jurisdiction, we support appropriate action being
taken by the relevant authorities."
The
28-year-old Diop accused Atletico Madrid fans of subjecting him to
monkey-chanting abuse as his side inflicted a shock 2-0 defeat on the Liga
leaders at the weekend.
He reacted
by dancing in front of the travelling fans at the final whistle, and television
images showed some furious Atletico supporters making monkey gestures.
A
provocation
"It
affected me a lot," Diop said.
"I
don't have anything against the Atletico fans. It is a provocation I get in
many grounds. It has to stop. I don't know if it is racism or a lack of
respect," he added.
"They
have to stop making monkey gestures at black players."
Spain's
professional football league, the LFP, said it "strongly condemns"
any racist, discriminatory, violent, xenophobic or intolerant acts, especially
in football and sport.
The league
warned of sanctions for serious breaches of anti-racism laws and said all
member clubs would be obliged to follow special training to prevent a repeat of
such behaviour.
"The
LFP will pursue this type of behaviour," it said in a statement.
The monkey
slurs made headlines in the British press.
"Spanish
football must face up to the fact that they have a serious racist problem. They
can't continue to bury their heads in the sand," tweeted former England
international Gary Lineker who once played for Barcelona.
A week
earlier, Barcelona's Brazilian international Alves shone a spotlight on racism
in Spanish football when he took a bite out of a banana thrown at him during
his side's win over Villarreal.
Star
players of different nationalities and races including Neymar, Sergio Aguero
and Luis Suarez joined a "we are all monkeys" campaign after the
incident.
The alleged
banana-thrower was subsequently arrested and handed a lifetime ban from the
stadium by Villarreal.
Alves said
it was not a one-off. "I have been in Spain 11 years and it has been the
same for 11 years. You have to laugh at these backward people," he said
after the game.
'Serious
racist problem'
Top-selling
Spanish sports daily Marca said a delegation of Atletico players visited Diop
in the changing rooms after the match to offer their apologies. But there was
no official public reaction from the club.
"Diop's
little dance directed at the Atletico fans was over the top,"
Barcelona-based sports daily Mundo Deportivo said Monday. "But the alleged
racist shouts were, too ... just like any other insult," it added.
The
reaction echoed the tone of some comments by Spanish football officials after
the Alves banana-throwing scandal a week earlier.
"It is
not everyone. I want to think these are isolated incidents. In football there
is no racism, not at all," Spain coach Vicente Del Bosque said at the
time.
Salvador
Rodriguez Moya, journalist and author of "Black card to racism" which
recounts 300 racist acts in Spanish football, said it would be wrong to condemn
all of Spain and all Spanish football as racist, describing the incidents as
isolated and anecdotal.
"But
it is still true that it is like a sleeping volcano, which could erupt at any
moment," Moya said in an interview.
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