MANCHESTER, England — Manchester United players were targeted with racist abuse and had objects thrown at them by Manchester City fans during Saturday’s derby at the Etihad Stadium.
Kick It Out, a British anti-racism watchdog, said it had been “inundated with reports of alleged racist abuse from a number of individuals” at the game, which Manchester United won, 2-1.
One incident appeared to be captured on video in the second half when a fan seemed to mimic monkey gestures in front of United’s Fred and Jesse Lingard as a corner kick was about to be taken.
“Not even this idiot can ruin tonight’s feeling, shameful behaviour,” Lingard wrote on Twitter in a quote tweet of the video of the incident. “It may be the derby but there is never ever a reason to be racist!”
Objects, including coins and lighters, were also thrown and Fred was seen holding his back.
“Unfortunately, this is happening in some stadiums,” Fred, a Brazilian midfielder, told ESPN. “It happened here, it happened in Ukraine with some friends. It’s sad, but we have to keep our heads up and forget about that. We can’t give them any attention because that’s all they want. I spoke to the referee after the match, they will do something about it and that’s all.”
United Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was angry amid the fallout from racism in a high-profile game.
“I’ve seen it on the video,” he said. “Fred and Jesse in the corner taking coins from the City fans first of all, so they’ve got to go away. And then there’s this not-so-intelligent fella chanting racist abuse towards my two players and I hope City and the authorities will deal with it, because he shouldn’t be watching football again. Not live, anyway.”
Manchester City said it was working with police to identify any perpetrators of racist abuse.
Source: Soccer - nytimes.com
