Champions League: Kick out CSKA

Champions League: Kick out CSKA

GROUP D

CSKA MOSCOW 1 (Zoran Tosic 32)

MAN CITY 2 (Sergio Aguero 34, 42)

The most popular anti-racism campaign in football is called Kick It Out. But the message still isn't getting through. So let's kick out CSKA Moscow instead.

The softly, softly approach is proving to be as toothless as it is exasperating. Uefa must take a decisive stand or be considered just as cowardly as the repugnant racists hiding in the shadows of the Khimki Arena.

Manchester City defeated CSKA Moscow 2-1 on Thursday morning (Singapore time), but the real winners were the racists. They seized centre stage. They shifted the focus to their nasty, sinister displays of intolerance.

They delight in our discomfort. We tiptoe sensitively around such a delicate issue. They goose step out front, loudly and proudly. So let's not hide behind a brittle banner of political correctness. Let's focus on the only issue that truly matters.

CSKA Mosow do not belong in the Champions League.

What Yaya Toure was subjected to in Moscow was inhumane behaviour from sub-humans. Never have I previously sat through a football match feeling so repulsed by such sickening chants.

Call me naive, idealistic, overly sensitive or emotional. I don't care. I can take it because I've never been called a monkey before.

I've witnessed - and been the victim of - hooliganism inside English stadiums. My football consciousness was framed by the twin horrors of Heysel and Hillsborough. But those tragedies were three decades ago. I was a boy. Now I am a man. The game grew up, too. Football evolved.

APPALLED

But on Thursday morning, I watched in disbelief as men regressed to something less than boyhood, something primitively tribal, something prehistoric: hundreds, if not thousands, of adults making monkey noises whenever a black man touched the ball.

Toure is twice the man I am. He didn't react. He rose above the incessant abuse and focused on his job as a professional sportsman.

But his job description felt like an oxymoron on Thursday. He was professional, but this wasn't sport. It was barbaric. There were monkeys on display, whooping and bouncing around behind their glass enclosure. But there were none on the pitch.

On the City side, there were only heroes. In the 53rd minute, Toure was fouled on the edge of box. Moronic chants echoed around the cavernous arena. His teammates rushed to Romanian referee Ovidiu Hategan to take action. He did nothing.

Under Uefa's guidelines, a referee should stop a match marred by racist abuse and insist on a plea being relayed on the public address system to stop the racist behaviour.

But it's only a guideline, not a law. A Uefa guideline carries about as much influence as the slogan "No to racism" stamped on the captain's armband, worn by the abused Toure.

As the monkey chants continued, the director cut to the home supporters. The commentators, perhaps oblivious to the racism, chatted inanely about the Russian supporters' colourful sparklers.

Such responses infuriate the viewer and insult the intelligence. We all have ears.

Perhaps the commentators genuinely couldn't hear and they did finally acknowledge the chants with 10 minutes left to play, after Toure had been subjected to the abuse for more than half an hour and maybe after the first public complaints had started to trickle through.

Either way, this isn't the first time. Whether it's the Champions League or the English Premier League, those who have a vested interest in promoting the game as a sanitised, polished family-friendly product must put Toure's wishes ahead of those of corporate sponsors.

Silence is complicity.

More than anything else, the hypocritical double standards are nauseating. Despite being allegedly united under the Uefa banner, there is no consistent code of conduct across the continent's domestic leagues.

EPL FERVOUR

When John Terry abuses Anton Ferdinand, he is hung out to dry by the world's media; a grubby representation of all that's gone wrong with the modern English game.

When Luiz Suarez offends Patrice Evra, he is the worst example of a sporting superstar's recidivism. He's a repeat offender without remorse.

Even if those accusations were correct, football's moral high ground appears to vanish when we move east of England.

Oh, there's another incidence of racism in Russia? That's just typical of those Eastern European leagues. There goes another flare to choke the throat and sting the eyes? Well, that's their quirky football culture for you.

Purity is demanded of the English Premier League, but anything goes elsewhere, it seems.

To provide just a few examples, Lokomotiv Moscow fans unfurled a banner for their departing forward Peter Odemwingie in 2010. The banner displayed a banana and the message: "Thanks West Brom."

The following year, Roberto Carlos was twice thrown bananas by Russian supporters while playing for Anzhi Makhachkala. He left the field in protest and broke down in the dressing room later.

BANANA

In 2012, Lokomotiv fans also threw a banana at Anzhi defender Christopher Samba. He later expressed his sadness at the number of children sitting in the same stand. On Thursday, Paul Parker told me that he suffered "loads" of racist abuse on Manchester United's trips to Russia.

He also suffered racism in his own country.

But that was 30 years ago. The English game has moved on, but the monkey chants remain in the Russia.

Heaven help black players at the 2018 World Cup Finals.

In his post-match interview, Toure was dignified, articulate and reasonable, qualities that were unworthy of the ugly spectacle. He simply said: "As an African player, it's always sad to hear that."

His sadness was shared. It wasn't necessary to be African to be offended.

But that's enough words spent on grotesque individuals. No more talking. Let's see some action from Uefa; punitive measures rather than a patronising, tokenistic fine.

Close the stadium or kick CSKA Moscow out of the Champions League.

Maybe then, the racists might take football's anti-racism stance seriously. They're certainly not paying attention to Uefa's threats now.

But it must be hard to listen to reason when you're making monkey noises.


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