By Andrew Warshaw
September 30 – Russian football authorities, still getting to grips with how to deal with racism, have taken the extraordinary step of banning Dynamo Moscow defender Christopher Samba for the way he retaliated to being verbally abused in a recent top-flight league game.
The Dynamo Moscow defender stuck his middle finger up at Moscow Torpedo fans before declining to come out for the second half of the highly charged derby between the two rivals.
The Russian Football Union viewed his action as incitement and said he was guilty of an “unpleasant gesture” which left them little option but to ban the Congolese player for two games.
“We took into account what happened on the pitch and that he was provoked. Therefore we decided to give the lightest possible punishment,” said Artur Grigoryants, head of the RFU disciplinary committee.
Apparently the ban meted out to Samba is the minimum sanction in Russia for such an offence but given the circumstances – in other words reacting to discrimination – an exception could perhaps have been made and the player instead fined or cautioned.
Torpedo Moscow have already been ordered to close a section of their stadium for one match following the incident but describing a two-match ban as the lightest possible punishment will send out entirely the wrong message, especially given the scrutiny that Russia, 2018 World Cup hosts, is under in terms of tackling racism properly.
Samba has apologised for his actions but added: “I want to play football and not have to listen to racial taunts.”
It should be noted that the former Queens Park Rangers and Blackburn defender was also abused in his first spell in Russia when a banana was thrown at him at Lokomotiv Moscow’s Stadium when playing for Anzhi Makhachkala.
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