Croatian FA to investigate alleged racist abuse of Manchester City player

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jul/24/croatia-fa-alleged-racist-abuse-manchester-city

Version 0 of 1.

The Croatian Football Federation has confirmed it is looking into claims that Manchester City’s Seko Fofana was racially abused during an under-21 match against HNK Rijeka.

City’s coach Patrick Vieira took his players off the pitch after Fofana alleged he had been targeted by Rijeka players when he was sent off in the friendly.

Ranko Buketa, who was in charge of the Rijeka team on Tuesday, denied the claims made by the City teenager, while the club issued a robust statement saying: “We are very unpleasantly surprised by the serious and unfounded allegations, which we entirely reject.”

Croatia’s FA (CFF) said: “We are in the process of gathering information regarding the alleged incident and if there are any decisions to be made we’ll make it public on our website.

“CFF follows a strong ‘no racism’ policy so we take all accusations of racism very seriously. The fight against racism (and any sort of discrimination) is one of the key components of our president Davor Suker’s programme and that is why we will have a good look into this matter.”

Buketa had alleged that Vieira had an ulterior motive for taking his side off following Fofana’s red card on the stroke of half-time but, with CFF confirming its own investigation, Uefa may now also take a look at the incident.

Giving his version of what happened, Buketa said: “After our first goal, we expected more pressure from City but we remained the dominant team in all departments and had several opportunities to score again. They responded with more aggression, which resulted in a red card for them.

“While the first tougher tackle on [Filip] Dangubic could be classified as reckless, the really violent tackle on Marko Marcius only a minute later was unjustifiable, so the Manchester midfielder was rightly sent off. What ensued was something rarely seen, even in friendly games.

“The Manchester coach, Patrick Vieira, entered the pitch, discussed something with the referee and then, to the utter surprise of the packed stadium, withdrew his team from the pitch. The reasons are known only to him.

“Perhaps he had expected an easier rival, against whom they could easily dominate and easily score, but this wasn’t the case against us.”