July 23 – As Russian football prepares to portray itself in the best possible light at Saturday’s star-studded 2018 World Cup draw, its record on racism has again been questioned with FC Ufa midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong describing the rejection of allegations he made as “beyond a joke”.
Frimpong complained he received monkey chants by Spartak Moscow supporters during the first match of the Russian Premier League season last Friday but the Russian Football Union found no evidence of racism.
The former Arsenal player was sent off after he raised a finger to the crowd has been suspended for two Premier League matches. The head of the disciplinary committee, Artur Grigoryants, said: “The match inspector and the match delegate did not note that there had been any disciplinary violations by Spartak supporters towards Frimpong in the match reports.”
But Frimpong wrote on Twitter that while he had “no problems” with the ban, “for the Russian FA to say they didn’t hear or see any evidence of racism is beyond a joke.”
Frimpong’s comments came on the day Brazilian striker Hulk was announced as one of the star names taking part in the preliminary draw, ironically just days after the Zenit St Petersburg forward raised fears of racism at the tournament.
Hulk said he encountered racism in “almost every game” in Russia. “Usually it happens when Russian clubs play and it doesn’t come out to the world and the world doesn’t know about this,” he said through a translator.
“I must say that almost every game I see this happening. I used to get angry, but now I see this doesn’t help, so I just send a kiss to our fans and try not to get angry.”
A report published in February by the anti-discrimination group FARE found more than 200 incidents of racist and discriminatory behaviour linked to Russian football over two seasons. The Russian government disputes the figures.
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