Russian Premier League champion CSKA Moscow’s president did little to assuage fears of bigotry on Sunday. Evgeny Giner told Sport-Express.ru that Manchester City midfielder “made up” his accusations of racist chants from CSKA fans in Wednesday’s UEFA Champions League match.
“Yaya Touré invented it all,” Giner said (via a Google translation and common-sense clean-up). “The [UEFA-assigned] delegate did not hear anything. The inspector did not hear anything. There was no hooting from the stands. CSKA ... has enough black players ourselves. What kind of racism? ...
“The British can not put up with the fact that they did not receive the 2018 World Cup. The British are constantly coming up with something: that in Russia the pitches are in bad condition, then the stands behave disgracefully racist. It is very frustrating.”
Giner’s statement comes after Touré called for a boycott of the 2018 FIFA World Cup set to be held in Russia if the country does not clean up its act. Russia has one of the worst reputations in Europe for accepted racist behavior, such as Zenit St. Petersburg fans’ public desire that the club not sign any black or foreign players.
(MORE: UEFA opens CSKA Moscow racism investigation; Yaya Touré says it’s not enough)
“I was at the game, and there was no racism,” Giner said. “I then spoke with our fans. I do not even want to discuss why Yaya Touré did that. ... God will judge him. Granted, in the championship of Russia, there were times when bananas flew onto the field, which is unacceptable.
“But in the match with Manchester City, we have nothing to talk about. Our fans behave decently and are sympathetic to the request of the club to have much fewer imposed fines.”
On Thursday, UEFA opened an investigation into the alleged events, which Touré brought to the attention of referee Ovidiu Hațegan as they occurred. Hațegan elected not to stop the match, which City won, 2-1. Both clubs issued statements on the incident, with City confirming it formally requested a UEFA investigation, while CSKA denied any wrongdoing.
