February 21 – The Brazilian at the centre of the latest disgraceful outburst of racist abuse in Serbian football says he wants to forget the incident as soon as possible despite being in floods of tears at the final whistle – pictures that were flashed across the world.
Partizan’s Brazilian midfielder Everton Luiz was subjected to monkey chants from Rad fans throughout last weekend’s game and was prompted into making an obscene gesture himself, leading to a full scale brawl among opposing players.
Before the end of the game, Rad fans also unveiled a vile banner insulting Luiz and causing the match to be halted.
“I want to forget this as soon as possible,” said Luiz. “I love Serbia and the people here (but) I was suffering racist abuse during the entire 90 minutes and also was upset by the home players, who supported that. Please say NO to racism!”
Partizan coach Marco Nikolic said the incident marked “a return to the reality of Serbian football.”
Serbia were forced to play a match behind closed doors after racially abusing an England player in 2012. Two years earlier a Euro qualifier against Italy had to be abandoned because of crowd trouble.
More recently against Albania a Euro 2016 qualifier was marked by a drone with a political banner being flown into the stadium in Belgrade though that was widely blamed on the Albanians. The game was abandoned after fighting broke out between players, fans and team officials and both teams were sanctioned.
Yet still Serbian fans do not appear to get the message. In last weekend’s incident the referee and stewards both made public announcements telling fans to stop their sick behaviour but were ignored.
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