Racist abuse, military salutes mar Euro 2020 qualifying
LONDON: Racism and politics overshadowed results in Euro 2020 qualifying on Monday as England’s players were subjected to a barrage of racist abuse in Bulgaria and Turkey celebrated an equaliser against France by lining up to give a military salute.
The game in Bulgaria was halted twice because of fans directing monkey chants at England players, but the visitors played on despite the abuse and won 6-0 to move within one point on qualifying for next year’s tournament.
In Paris, Kaan Ayhan’s late equaliser for Turkey canceled out substitute Olivier Giroud’s 76th-minute header to earn the visitors a 1-1 draw. After the goal, Turkey goalkeeper Mert Gnok joined captain Burak Yilmaz and several other outfield players in giving a military salute toward the crowd in apparent support of the Turkish-backed forces involved in the country’s invasion of Kurdish-held regions in northern Syria. UEFA, which does not allow political gestures during games, had previously said it would investigate a similar salute performed by Turkey players in their 1-0 win over Albania on Friday.
Away from those controversies, Ukraine booked their place in next year’s tournament with a 2-1 win over Portugal in Kiev, despite Cristiano Ronaldo scoring his 700th career goal.
Group ‘A’ leaders England still have to wait for their place at the Euros despite hammering hapless Bulgaria, but the focus of attention was again on the stands as the home fans caused mayhem with racist chanting.
It was another England match blighted by racism from opposition fans after England’s black players were targeted with monkey chants during their 5-1 win at Montenegro in March.
The level of abuse from a section of the Bulgarian support led the English Football Association to demand an investigation from UEFA, asking European football’s governing body to open a probe “as a matter of urgency”.
“This is not the first time our players have been subjected to this level of abuse and there is no place for this kind of behavior in society, let alone in football,” the FA said.
Tyrone Mings was one of those targeted on his England debut, and he said that stopping the game did have the desired effect of reducing racist abuse in the second half.
“We made the decision at half-time to come out and play the game which we thought was the right decision,” said Mings. “If anything else happened, we would have taken appropriate action.”
England led 2-0 through early goals from Marcus Rashford and Ross Barkley when play was first stopped in the 28th minute and an announcement made to supporters that the game could be suspended the abuse continued.
Once restarted, England quickly made it 3-0 through Barkley before a second stoppage, with Croatian referee Ivan Bebek holding discussions with players and coaching staff from both sides.
Bulgaria supporters in the crowd were also seen doing Nazi salutes and holding up shirts with the UEFA logo and the text “No Respect” a reference to the European governing body’s “Respect” campaign aimed at curbing racism in the sport. During the second break, several dozen of the Bulgaria fans involved in the chanting, many of them wearing dark hoodies, left the stadium.
Raheem Sterling then netted twice either side of half-time before Harry Kane rounded off the scoring to take England to the brink of qualification.
“We have made two statements by winning the game but also we have raised the awareness of everyone of the situation,” England coach Gareth Southgate said.