After their creditable 1-1 draw against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night, Chelsea fans around the world would have been feeling fairly happy; having scored a crucial away goal through Branislav Ivanovic, the Blues had put themselves in a strong position for the second leg of this Champions League tie despite an average performance.
However, by the time a lot of them had gone to bed, the feeling of satisfaction at the night turned into embarrassment.
Chelsea’s Racist ‘Fans’ Should Not Be Held Against the Club
Just over an hour after the full-time whistle had blown, The Guardian posted a video on their website, shot by a British expatriate living in Paris, of a group of away supporters seemingly refusing a black man entry onto their carriage on a Paris Métro train, before singing a chant about their captain John Terry relating to the racism case in which he was implicated in 2012.
The chant was widely reported as having had the lyrics “We’re racist, we’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it, we like it, we like it,” but it does, in fact, seems to actively support Terry, who was banned and fined by the Football Association in 2012 for allegedly racially abusing QPR’s Anton Ferdinand.
“@BBCNews: @ChelseaFC vow to ban any fans involved in “abhorrent” confrontation in Paris #CFC” @CFCMccoypic.twitter.com/xYoH5Pccts
— Ciaran McDermott (@CiaranJMcD) February 18, 2015
In fact, one of the fans who was supposedly in the video, Twitter user @CFCMccoy, who has since protected his account from public view, attempted to clear up the situation, by confirming that the song he was singing included the word “Our captain is a racist, a racist, a racist, and that is why we love him, we love him, we love him.”
The involvement of Terry’s name in the chant is another huge shame for Chelsea Football Club.
The initial reported chant was, at least, free from direct involvement from the club, but involving the name of one of the side’s longest-serving players can only worsen the situation.
However, on Wednesday morning, a club spokesman issued a strong response to the problem, saying “such behaviour is abhorrent and has no place in football or society. We will support any criminal action against those involved, and should evidence point to involvement of Chelsea season-ticket holders or members the club will take the strongest possible action against them, including banning orders.”
The expatriate who shot the footage, Paul Nolan, was able to capture the faces of the guilty fans fairly well in his video, and this means that there is a much stronger chance that they will be identified and punished by the club and the police.
Nolan’s comments on the matter reflected his shock at the situation, with him telling The Guardian “The doors were open and I could see and hear that a lot of chanting was going on. It looked like it was quite aggressive so I just took out by phone to record it.”
He said that the train had been stopped for about three minutes when the man arrived on the platform and tried to get on.
“He was obviously completely shocked when they pushed him off. I don’t think he realised who they were. He then tried to get on again and got pushed off a second time.”
Nolan noted too there was a sense of disbelief amongst fellow passenger, saying “there definitely was a culture shock. I heard a couple of French guys saying: ‘I can’t believe this. It’s insane.”
There does seem to be a farcical element to the chanting. Chelsea also played Paris Saint-Germain in last year’s Champions League, and progressed in the tie thanks to a late Demba Ba goal in the home leg. Would these ‘fans’ have been discriminatory towards a black man in the aftermath to that game? It seems implausible.
Just saw the video of the Chelsea mob’s deplorable behaviour and racist chants. Sickening, embarrassing, moronic, disgraceful.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) February 18, 2015
Chelsea fanzine editor David Johnstone believes the incident could have severe consequences for the club’s reputation. “Because of the actions of possibly half a dozen people on a Metro train in Paris all the supporters are going to be labelled as racist,” he told BBC Radio Five Live.
This is one of the major problems with UEFA taking action against a club for this sort of incident. Johnstone’s words run true with the vast majority of football fans, as almost every major club in England has, at some point, suffered from a section of followers being violent or racist.
In 2011, Leeds United and Manchester United fans clashed at a League Cup game, with two policemen suffering injuries and 24 arrests being made. A small section of Liverpool fans contributed to the deaths of 39 Juventus fans in the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, with many supporters looking back at that day with huge amounts of shame at the actions of people with whom they have limited association. Arsenal fans were implicated in 2000 for perceived hooliganism before and after the UEFA Cup Final against Galatasaray, and North London rivals Tottenham have had criminal history for organising a brawl with West Ham United fans in 2009. The point here is that the ‘fans’ involved in these incidents are not necessarily representative of the club, and should not be held against the club by the game’s governing bodies.
Chelsea Football Club have little reason to feel associated with this group of men, and that viewpoint is repeated by Johnstone, who said “I think the majority of Chelsea supporters are disgusted by what’s happened. The 2,000 who were in Paris today support a Jewish-owned football team where the majority of players are black and foreign.”
If Chelsea manage to find and ban these men to the satisfaction of UEFA, it seems ridiculous that the club should have to be fined or punished on account of the actions of a handful of their supporters outside of a ground. However, this is just one of a series of problems the club have had with racism, and the incident will again, however regrettably, go down next to the name of Chelsea.
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