Antonio Rudiger/ Racism at Tottenham (?)

Antonio Rudiger/ Racism at Tottenham (?)

By Don Scully

Tottenham announced that they have found no evidence to support allegations of racism from our supporters towards Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger during the sides' Premier League match last month. The only thing they did find was racial abuse towards Son by Chelsea supporters.

It seems the only person who was doing Monkey chants was Rudiger himself (to explain what he heard, to the crowd/ referee).

I am not saying that he made it up (even though some will), however, it must be a lesson learnt. It seems no other players (Spurs or Chelsea) had heard the chants either. Nor the stewards/ police or even those supporters that were nearby. What Rudiger should have done/ said, to the other players, “Did you hear that?” I often have, myself, misheard something and responded quite angrily, “what did you say?” Only to learn that I misheard what was said. Easy done.

It seems our good name was tarnished by the said player mishearing what was said or chanted.

The play was stopped during the Spurs/ Chelsea game after Rudiger said he heard monkey noises. Tottenham’s response, they "fully support Antonio Rudiger with the action he took" and the club and police "exhausted all avenues of investigation". They continued with "There is no evidence to corroborate or contradict the allegation," they said.

Chelsea response was: "We support Toni Rudiger totally and unequivocally on this matter, and as Tottenham's statement makes clear, a lack of evidence does not mean an incident did not take place.” They continued with, “In responding to this incident, we must be very careful about the climate we create for players who experience and report racist behaviour.”

Yes, they are right when they said that “a lack of evidence does not mean an incident did not take place.” At the same time, there is no evidence that it did. You can’t prove a negative.

Chelsea carried on with "It is vitally important that we continue to encourage all players, whatever shirt they wear, to report racist abuse without fear of doubt or reprisal." I agree. There is no room for racism within any club… But players also must be careful what they say as well and must make sure that what they’ve heard is correct. In other words, double check that they didn’t miss hear, themselves.

A total of six arrests were made following Chelsea's win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 22 December as part of the Metropolitan Police operation at the fixture, but none were linked to the incident involving Germany international Rudiger. One Chelsea fan was arrested for a racially aggravated public order offence against Spurs forward Son Heung-min, who had been sent off after a collision with Rudiger. As for the other two; it hasn’t been made clear who was responsible or what they said or did.

Tottenham, themselves, said they were able to "track every fan" using cameras in their new 62,062 stadium and that any supporter found to be guilty of racism would "receive a lifetime ban".

Tottenham also stated that they had worked with professional lip-readers and that all reports had also been reviewed by the police.

"We are fiercely proud of our anti-racism work and our zero tolerance of any form of discrimination," the club said. "This is one reason why we have attributed so much time and resource for investigating this matter. Had we identified anyone guilty of this we were intent on issuing them with a lifetime ban from our stadium as they would have no place among our proud, diverse fanbase.” They went on and said, “If any new information comes to light, this will be fully investigated."

The police for their part have notified Spurs that "they have closed the crime report as they can find no evidence to support the allegation of racial abuse".

The moral of this story; think before responding and double-check that you’ve heard rightly. It could easily backfire and the last thing we want is for black players or anybody not listened to because of somebody cried wolf.

As for myself; I condemn any racism or abuse (whether that be homophobia, transgender, etc.). We are all equal and should be respected and loved for what we are. Differences make the world go around that bit better. It would be a more miserable place if we were all uninformed (the same).

I remember the bad old days when players were abused, bloody street fightings between rival fans etc. It isn’t perfect today, but a lot better than what we had in the past.