Let’s hope Arsenal can do what UEFA won't dare ... boot Slavia and their racist fans out of Europe
The modern Slavia is a fully multicultural team and even our hardcore fans wear jerseys of all players without exceptions.
THOSE were the words contained within one of many club statements issued from Prague on the subject of what international defender Ondrej Kudela did to Glen Kamara this week. No mention, of course, of whether those shirts the hardcore love to sport about town have an appalling racist message printed beside the names of the black members of the side.
Slavia Prague’s credibility was already hanging by a thread late on Friday night in the wake of their attempt to turn a detailed, authentic accusation of racism against a senior player into a sorry melange of gaslighting, finger-pointing and allegations of foul play and assault when that picture dropped.
The picture that nailed all protestations that Slavia are some kind of living embodiment of liberty, equality and fraternity, reaching hands across all oceans and making future plans to enter the pitch at the Sinobo Stadium to the sound of Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
Prior to this season’s impressive run to the last eight of the Europa League, it is fair to say few people on these shores were aware of Slavia, their coach Jindrich Trpisovsky and his hugely-effective side.
They are known now, all right. Known for one player being accused of calling Kamara ‘a f ****** monkey’ and a section of their fanbase following that up by posting a photo on Instagram of a banner with the N-word being brandished proudly amid a backdrop of smokebombs — with the Rangers star tagged in.
Slavia’s president Jaroslav Tvrdik was quick to take to social media, reporting himself ‘extremely ashamed’ and branding the post ‘disgusting’ and ‘embarrassing’.
Disgusting and embarrassing doesn’t even begin to cover it. Tvrdik has had plenty to say on Twitter since his side’s 2-0 win at Ibrox on Thursday night. He started by stating that he didn’t know what Kudela hollered in Kamara’s ear from behind a cupped hand, but was sure he didn’t know ‘a more decent or modest person than Ondra’.
And that’s been the narrative from Slavia’s side since. Kudela, this saintly figure, was the real victim. Kamara is the thug who allegedly punched him in the tunnel and a member of a side who, if Slavia are to believed, are just trying to cover up the fact they are better suited to UFC competitions than UEFA ones.
Given how Ryan Kent was kicked from pillar to post over 90 rough minutes, it looks like the Czechs would be more than a match for them in the octagon as well, then.
UEFA have pledged to open an investigation. It says much for public faith in that institution that no one expects anything meaningful to come from it.
‘As black players, we are used as pawns in an industry to make money and I feel that is all that we are,’ said Rangers defender Connor Goldson, perhaps his most affecting comment in a round of powerful media interviews on Friday that cut to the heart of where we are now with this soul-emptying subject.
Words are no longer enough. It is time for hard, definitive actions. And that brings us back to Slavia and Mr Tvrdik.
He has detailed his revulsion over Slavia followers using racist language. That’s fine. What’s he really going to do about it, though?
It can’t be hard to find out who is pictured with the Kamara banner. Which fans’ group they belong to. Identifying them and banning them from his ground has to be the non-negotiable starting point.
Sure, another statement has since said they’ll submit a ‘criminal complaint’ about the offenders — whatever that means — but let’s judge Slavia by how this all ends.
After all, when Romelu Lukaku accused their fans of racist chanting during a game with Inter Milan in 2019, the club’s reaction was to demand an apology because they disagreed with his view that it was ‘the whole ground’ doing it.
They made him the bad guy in the end. Just as Kamara is the bad guy now.
If they are, indeed, committed to change, revisiting the Kudela incident, no matter UEFA’s own enquiries, would certainly be a way to show it. Look, the default position within football, in every country, is to circle the wagons and protect your own.
Surely someone inside Slavia’s power structure, though, is looking at what has unfolded since Thursday night and having second thoughts about the wisdom of continuing to blindly follow the party line.
Bongani Zungu, the Ibrox midfielder and surely the key witness for any proper UEFA investigation, heard what Kudela said. The soundtrack from footage shown on Rangers TV clearly has him shouting to the touchline about use of the word ‘monkey’.
Why would an enraged Rangers team wait inside the tunnel for Slavia’s players at time-up if Kudela really only did call Kamara ‘a f ***** g guy’ — a story becoming even more difficult to accept — when covering his mouth from the cameras?
Why would Kamara go to the unprecedented lengths of issuing a statement through a solicitor to detail exactly what was said and brand Kudela’s account ‘a complete, utter lie’.
This is serious, serious stuff. Way beyond the norm. And it needs serious attention.
Goldson’s overall demeanour — that weary resignation underpinning the obvious disgust — was hard to countenance on Friday. The pictures of Kamara being hugged by Steven Gerrard on the touchline the night before, burying his head in the manager’s shoulder, were just heartbreaking.
You feel like crying for these guys. Based purely on what your gut and your own eyes are telling you. This is no game.
As a kid, born in Tampere to parents from Sierra Leone, Kamara was the only black player in his second proper boys’ team in Finland. He has spoken about being targeted by racists back then and getting into ‘the odd little scuffle’.
Who knows what the events of the last few days have brought back for him? For all black and mixed-race players in the Rangers team — and perhaps those in the Slavia line-up, too.
Quietly, away from the internet grandstanding, Slavia should be returning to Kudela and his team-mates and asking if they have any more to say. Any further information to give.
Rangers were in this boat, themselves, with their former captain Lorenzo Amoruso back in 1999.
Accused of calling Victor Ikpeba ‘a black b ***** d’ in a Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund, the Italian initially insisted he never traded insults in English on the park. After an outcry and some lip-reading from TV, Rangers made him sit through the pictures and issue an apology.
It went no further, it should be said. Amoruso played on. Ikpeba didn’t want to file a complaint.
Different times, of course. But at least we got to the truth in the end.
There is a sense we are still some way from that position with Kudela and Kamara. And may never get there.
For now, though, Rangers fans are already taking a certain comfort from Slavia being drawn to face Arsenal in the next round.
Kamara went through the academy system there after joining from Southend aged 16. Calum Chambers played beside him along with the Gunners’ current academy coach Per Mertesacker. He is one of their own.
Arsenal’s manager Mikel Arteta — a former Ranger, of course — also got to know Kamara during his time as a midfielder there.
Rangers and Arsenal have a long, historical bond going back to the early last century when the Ibrox club bought shares and arranged friendlies to pull the London club out of a financial crisis. Legendary managers Bill Struth and Herbert Chapman later went on to form one of the great footballing friendships.
The way things stand right now, it is hard not to shake the feeling this is the perfect time for those old connections to be rekindled and for Arsenal to do what UEFA almost certainly will not.
By kicking Slavia, and all their nauseating baggage, firmly out of Europe and back out of sight.