Rangers player reveals racial abuse from club's own 'fans'

Published on Wednesday 21 October 2009 21:56

RANGERS Football Club was last night examining CCTV footage in an attempt to track down fans who screamed racist abuse at Maurice Edu, an incident he later revealed on Twitter.

The club has warned that any fan identified will be banned from Ibrox Stadium for life.

The Rangers player was in the Ibrox car park following the club's 4-1 defeat by the Romanian champions, Unirea Urziceni, on Tuesday, when fans shouted racial abuse at him.

In a post on his Twitter account yesterday morning, the US internationalist said: "Not sure what hurt more: result last nite or being racially abused by couple of r own fans as I'm getting in my car…smh (shaking my head]…off to rehab."

The 23-year-old midfielder is recovering from a knee injury and was a spectator at the match. But it is not the first time he has complained of racist abuse on the social networking website.

In August, he said he had been on the receiving end of hate-filled comments from a number of users. Then he wrote: "It's sad n embarrassing that people follow me so they can write racist comments. SMH. It's '09, people, let's grow up n mature a lil bit."

Edu immediately deleted the post, but not before many of his thousands of followers had read it.

Rangers will this weekend take part in a "Show Racism the Red Card" campaign, with each player holding up a red card prior to game.

Last night, a statement was issued by the club, which read: "Rangers Football Club condemns out of hand this moronic behaviour. The action is disgusting and completely unacceptable. We would urge anyone who has information to contact the club immediately.

"Everyone associated with Rangers will once again demonstrate their ongoing commitment to Show Racism the Red Card as we support the weekend of action at the Hibernian game at Ibrox Stadium on Saturday."

A spokeswoman added: "If caught, they will be banned from Ibrox for life."

Billy Singh, of Show Racism the Red Card, said yesterday: "We are angered, disappointed and saddened that racism is still going on. Maurice was not playing last night, but would fans have treated him in this manner if he had scored the winning goal?

"We are in the middle of a recession and we are in the blame culture and, at the moment, it targets refugees and migrant workers."

David Edgar, spokesman for the Rangers Supporters Trust, said of the abuse: "We would absolutely condemn that, if that's the case.

"These are not Rangers fans and they should be caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law."

Edu has made 16 appearances for Rangers since moving to Scotland from Toronto FC for 2.6 million in August 2008.

It is not the first time he has been at the centre of controversy. In July, an online question-and answer session between the player and Rangers fans was hijacked by supporters from Celtic. During the Ustream session, he unwittingly gave a "shout out" to Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.

Yesterday, Strathclyde Police said that the player had not made a formal complaint.