It’s sad to have to report another alleged incident of this nature, but fair play to the Manchester City under-21 side for taking a stand against such Neanderthal behaviour.
The club last night confirmed that a friendly game between City’s under-21 side and Croatian side HNK Rijeka was cancelled after midfielder Seko Fofana was allegedly the subject of racist abuse by an opposition player.
Manchester City issued a statement last night, which read: “Manchester City’s EDS (Elite Development Squad) U21 game with HNK Rijeka has today been cancelled due to an alleged incident of racial abuse toward the Club’s young midfielder, Seko Fofana by a member of the opposing team.
“Following an alleged incident in the latter stages of the first half of the game, being played in Novigrad, Croatia, a decision was taken by the management staff to withdraw the City team from the field of play and cancel the game.
“Club representatives in Croatia and in Manchester are liaising with officials, the match organisers and the Croatian Football Association to pursue this matter further.”
HNK Riejka, meanwhile, issued a statement on their website, which seemed to suggest that they are unaware that any incident took place.
The statement read: “Manchester City coach Patrick Vieira entered the field, something was discussed with the referee, and then to the amazement of a well-filled stadium he took his team off the pitch. What are the reasons? They are known only to him.”
Unfortunately for City, they have plenty of experience when it comes to this issue, with CSKA Moscow fans fined for racist abuse towards Yaya Toure last year, while earlier this year, Devante Cole, who is also part of the Elite Development Squad, was allegedly spat at and subjected to racial abuse during a Uefa Youth League fixture against Atlético Madrid in Spain.
The La Liga side were fined €10,000 by Uefa and ordered to partially close their youth stadium as a result.
Hopefully an investigation will provide some clarity into what exactly happened, but the fact that there is even an accusation of racism is worrying as it comes off the back of a number of high-profile allegations of racism towards players such as Kevin Prince-Boateng and Mario Balotelli in recent years.
