Manchester City player alleges racist abuse by Russian fans

A professional soccer team from Moscow is embroiled in a racism controversy that has embarrassed Russia as it prepares to host two of the world’s largest international sporting events – the Winter Olympics in February and the 2018 soccer World Cup.

Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure, who is black and grew up in Cote d'Ivoire, said he was racially abused by opposing fans during a Champions League match with team PFC CSKA Moscow, the latest in a spate of racist incidents at Russian stadiums.

On Thursday, European Football (UEFA) opened disciplinary proceedings against the team, responding to calls from Toure that the continent’s governing body for soccer take action.

"I think UEFA has to be stronger, and hold all the clubs and all the fans that do that (responsible)," Toure said. "Maybe they have a stadium ban. For me as an African player it is always sad to hear something like that and we need to do something about it."

UEFA has decided recently that racist chants should involve a partial stadium closure for the first offense and a full stadium closure for repeat offenders. Bobby Barnes, Europe's top official in the international players' union, said Thursday that the match officials failed to carry out their own protocol after Toure told referee Ovidiu Hategan about the chants.

While British newspapers condemned the chants, Russian media were mostly silent and PFC CSKA implied it did not happen.

"In a thorough study of the videotape, we found no racist insults directed at the guests by PFC CSKA fans, and the delegate confirmed this at the end of the match," said a statement on the club’s website, posted under a headline that read: "CSKA is against racism!"

The team’s director general Roman Babayev also suggested Russian fans were not racist: "There are Africans at CSKA, too: Ahmed Musa, Seydou Doumbia. And they have never encountered such problems."

Besides denying the incident, the Russian team went further by quoting Doumbia, a striker who is also from Cote d'Ivoire, as saying Toure was overstating what had happened.

"Yes, they're always noisy in supporting the team, and try to put as much pressure as possible on our opponents," Doumbia said, "but they wouldn't ever allow themselves to come out with racist chants. So my Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) colleague is clearly exaggerating."

But Toure, a well-respected player who learned Russian while playing for Metalurg Donetsk in Ukraine, insists he was racially abused during his team’s 2-1 win in Moscow and even raised the prospect of teams boycotting the World Cup in 2018 if Russia does not address its racism problem.

“If we aren't confident at the World Cup, coming to Russia, we don't come," he said, according to Russian news outlet RIA Novosti.

The prospect of such a boycott, however unlikely, is embarrassing to Russia as it prepares to host its first World Cup.

Fans and players are troubled by Russian soccer’s inability to stifle racism at games in light of the six reported incidents of racism involving Russian clubs in the last five years.

Former Brazil defender Roberto Carlos was greeted with racist banners and had bananas thrown at him while playing against Zenit St Petersburg and Krylia Sovetov Samara in March 2011. Christopher Samba faced similar treatment from Lokomotiv Moscow fans a year later.

The most explicit moment of bigotry in Russian soccer history came last December, when a fan group for Zenit demanded in a statement that the club should not sign any black or gay players.

The group said in a manifesto that "dark-skinned players are all but forced down Zenit's throat now, which only brings out a negative reaction," and said gay players were "unworthy of our great city."

Following the spate of incidents last year, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko vowed to fight fan racism, but his promises have not materialized and authorities seem reluctant to investigate and punish the culprits.

The Russian Soccer Union and a spokeswoman for the Russian Sports Ministry both declined to comment.

The controversy comes as Russia is mired in ethnic tension off the soccer pitch as well. The stabbing death of an ethnic Russian man was widely blamed on a migrant from Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim country, touching off a nationalist riot on Oct. 13 – the biggest outbreak of ethnic unrest in the capital in three years.

Putin on Tuesday underlined Kremlin concerns that ethnic or religious tensions could threaten Russia's unity and deflected responsibility for ethnic and religious strife by accusing foreign rivals of using radical Islam to weaken Russia.

In December 2010, several thousand youths rioted just outside the Kremlin, clashing with police and attacking passersby who they took for non-Russians after the killing of an ethnic Russian soccer fan that was blamed on a man from the North Caucasus.

In addition to frequent shows of racism, Russia has come under scrutiny as the host of the Winter Olympics because of the law passed this year outlawing "propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations among minors," which many worry may apply to gay athletes and visitors to the games.

Al Jazeera with wire services