Sports

Croatia fined over racist taunts

by Paul Conneally | September 25, 2008 at 07:32 am

336 views | 30 Recommendations | 6 comments

FIFA have worked along with all national football associations to promote the 'Give Racism the Red Card" message but still we get racist chants at some International matches and Croatian fans appear to be amongst the worse offenders. The not quite £15k fine given to the Croatian FA for its fans racial taunting of England player Emile Heskey is nothing in the grand scheme of football finances and many are now asking for stronger action including perhaps disqualification from international competitions including the World Cup. Football or soccer as the Americans prefer to call it is a truly multi-racial sport and FIFA's assertion that racism should play no part in it needs to perhaps be backed up by sanctions with teeth.

half-time orange
the coach gives a team-talk
in six languages

The Croatian Football Federation have been fined £14,920 for the racist behaviour of some of their supporters in the World Cup qualifier against England earlier this month.

England striker Emile Heskey was subjected to monkey chants from a small section of the crowd at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb after being booked during the 4-1 victory for Fabio Capello's side.

The Football Association had asked Fifa to investigate the incident and the world governing body have today issued the fine.

A statement said: "Racism has no place in football. Fifa is determined to continue broadcasting this message around the globe and deploying all of the means at its disposal to eliminate this form of discrimination."

It is the second time in a matter of months Croatian fans have been found guilty of racist behaviour with Fifa issuing a small fine during Euro 2008 following chants during their quarter-final against Turkey.

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Jordan Yerman

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:23 on September 25th, 2008

LotusFlower, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Uwe Paschen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:54 on September 25th, 2008

Paul Conneally

at 09:07 on September 25th, 2008

Thanks both of you Jordon and Paschen for the flags - in the uk racist chants used to be the norm - i remember the great John Barnes playing for Liverpool and getting chants and banana skins thrown at him but throughout he remained dignified which made the chanters look even worse - even more stupid. Now in the UK top leagues its rare to hear chants or even single shouts and if heard they are usually dealt with immeadiatly - thrown out and usually banned from stadia for life.