Why Buck’s right to slam UEFA probe

Bruce Buck, chelsea’s chairman, has been criticised for denouncing ueFA’s investigation into anti-semitism at the club’s away europa League game with MOL Vidi of Hungary. Buck said ueFA were ‘wasting their time, effort and manpower… and missing the big pictures’.

even though ueFA’s case was dropped, Buck’s comments were considered insensitive. Yet he had a point. chelsea acknowledge they have had problems with anti-semitic comments and have confronted this head on. Their ‘Say no to antisemitism’ campaign won community Project of the Year at the London Football Awards. But how much help are they getting?

At a recent meeting with police, chelsea were informed the Tottenham chant ‘Yid Army’ was not considered offensive, but a form of self-identification — little different to Arsenal fans calling themselves ‘Gooners’.

In that context, it was explained, any chelsea supporter using the word ‘Yid’ towards Tottenham fans would be considered to be talking about them as Spurs followers, not Jews.

Take this to its logical conclusion, and half of Stamford Bridge could sing ‘We hate the f****** Yids’ and that would be Ok — as long as no person under police interview admitted they hated Jews, not Lilywhites. In the same conversation with police it was clarified the ‘chelsea rent boys’ chant was not considered homophobic unless a fan confessed that his motivation for singing it was a hatred of homosexuals.

chelsea are exasperated. They will continue excluding fans from their ground for using the Y-word, indeed senior stewards could be heard giving that instruction prior to last week’s match with Tottenham, but feel frustrated at the lack of support. Maybe this explains why Buck (above) was tetchy about ueFA’s investigation. He is right. The bigger picture is being missed. KATIE ARCHIBALD crashed in the omnium at cycling’s World Championships in Poland last week. Finishing seventh, inconsolable and bleeding from the elbow, she blamed no one but herself. ‘It was just f*** up after f*** up,’ she wailed. Rarely do we hear that sort of honesty in football — and yet, at plenty of clubs, it could be translated into Latin and inscribed around the badge.