Ghanaian player Emmanuel Frimpong was sent off in a game for his Russian side FC Ufa for gesturing to the crowd with his middle finger in response to alleged racial abuse.
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When speaking to Russian reporters, the former Arsenal man said: “When the match was stopped, the fans started shouting “monkey” at me”. These are emotions which go away after the game.
Manchester City and Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure, who has been racially abused while playing in Russian Federation in the Champions League, has previously said black players might boycott the World Cup unless the country tackles racism in football. ‘Then the monkey chants started.’.
Ufa general director Shamil Gazizov says his club would not be calling for Spartak to be punished, describing it as an “unfortunate incident” insisting they are friends of the Moscow club.
He tweeted: “First of want to apologise for the sending off after being provoked shouldn’t have happened but also am human being shouldn’t be…”
“We recently reinforced our fight against discrimination in football with the introduction of a new anti-discrimination monitoring system for the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers”, FIFA said in a statement.
He added: “What Frimpong did was wrong”.
Frimpong took to Twitter in the aftermath of the game to sound a warning ahead of the 2018 World Cup in the country, writing “African(s) will have to come (here to) play football”.
“I must stressed not all Spartak fans done that only one person had to ruin it Spartak fans were brilliant and created a good atmosphere shame one person ruin it”.
The visitors took the lead in the 12th minute, through a header from Bosnian forward Haris Handzic, but the hosts equalised in the 24th through Serdar Tasci following a corner.
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The 23-year-old was playing for Ufa at Spartak Moscow when he saw red, seeming to make an obscene gesture at supporters.
