England great defends official accused of racism
A row has erupted over the racism scandal to engulf the Champions League after John Barnes proclaimed there was nothing wrong with amatch official describing an African coach as ‘‘the black one’’.
Former Liverpool and England midfielder Barnes leapt to the defence of Sebastian Coltescu, whose alleged abuse of Pierre Webo saw both teams walk off the pitch during Paris St-Germain’s game against Istanbul Basaksehir on Wednesday.
The match, which was abandoned, was played to a conclusion yesterday with players from both sides taking a knee and sporting ‘‘No to Racism’’ T-shirts before a 5-1 PSG win.
The previous night’s unprecedented scenes earlier sparked warnings such protests could become commonplace.
Doubt was also cast over whether it was Coltescu or a colleague who had been caught on microphone, while allegations
emerged from Romania that the match officials had themselves been called ‘‘gypsies’’.
The alleged racial slur against former Cameroon striker Pierre Webo occurred when he was shown a red card for protesting a referee decision, with the Romanian term ‘‘negru’’, or ‘‘the black one’’, used to identify him to the referee.
Barnes, a victim of shocking racist abuse himself while a player and now a prominent commentator on discrimination within society, responded to the outcry over the incident by posting images of the Basaksehir coaching staff on Twitter and writing: ‘‘Its [sic] NOT racist to describe the offender as the black one!
‘‘We are telling people to call us black.. . he doesn’t know his name, there are 6/7 coaches standing together all Turkish ... 1 is to be sent off, the ref says which one THE BLACK ONE what else can he say to let the ref know?
‘‘Why can’t you describe a blackman as being a black man?’’
Barnes stood by his remarks, even after being challenged over whether a white coach would be described in similar terms.
His view was echoed by Benfica manager Jorge Jesus, who also branded racism storms ‘‘very fashionable’’, but Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho, Leicester City’s Brendan Rodgers and anti-racism campaigners all disagreed.
Mourinho dubbed the use of the words an ‘‘unacceptable mistake’’ while Rodgers said, ‘‘we can’t tolerate that behaviour’’.