Numerous Croatian papers and media have confirmed that the English FA have filed a formal complaint to FIFA regarding racist chants coming from Croatian fans during the Croatia-English clash Wednesday night in Zagreb. The chants were geared towards England Forward, Emile Heskey, who is a black man.
I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary as I was watching the game on the television and the exact things that were said have not been released. This is a preliminary report but it sounds like the English FA are pretty sure of themselves on this one.
If FIFA does in fact fine and punish the Croatian FA for this, I can foresee Croatian fans not being given tickets next year for the Wembley rematch and even a lock out of one game at Maksimir this qualifying campaign.
FIFA’s number one slogan is “SAY NO TO RACISM.” For this to keep happening to Croatian fans after all the warnings and fines they recieve is beyond me. Torcida just got banned from two Europe games by UEFA only a month ago. I can see FIFA really dropping down the hammer on the situation if Croatian fans were indeed chanting derogatory remarks.
Croatia has been playing good ball internationally and always has a few club teams in the UEFA Cup mix. Croatia was also very close to receiving the Euro 2012 joint bid with Hungary. With fingers always being pointed toward Croatians, whether we were guilty or not, the fans have given the whole association a horrible reputation that is singlehandedly counter-acting everything our players are doing on the field.
More will follow as FIFA decides on the matter.
The report has now come out that a small group of Croatian fans, and I’m talkin really small, were chanting ‘MONKEY’ towards Heskey. It couldn’t have been more than 100 fans so we’ll see how FIFA reacts.