Euro 2012: Uefa aware of racist chants Dutch keen to focus on football

Van Marwijk appeared keen to draw a line under the incident which apparently saw his players subjected to monkey chants at Wisla Krakow’s Miejski Stadium on Wednesday.

He and Van Bommel - who yesterday branded the incident “a disgrace” - merely repeated what was already known, the former confirming he had not heard the alleged abuse and the latter reiterating he himself definitely had.

“The whole group heard it,” Van Bommel said after arriving in Kharkiv, Ukraine, ahead of tonight’s Euro 2012 Group B opener against Denmark.

Van Marwijk added: “I didn’t hear anything racist in nature but there were some players who did, including the one sat next to me.”

Neither spoke about the possible implications of the incident, which was finally acknowledged yesterday by both Uefa and the Dutch Football Association.

Having been satisfied by the Dutch FA’s initial assurances the abuse was not racially motivated, Uefa announced yesterday morning they had been made aware of “isolated incidents of racist chanting” and promised a crackdown.

European football’s governing body confirmed they would consider increasing the number of stewards at open training sessions in order to eject fans if there was a repeat. They said in a statement: “Should such behaviour happen at further training sessions, Uefa would evaluate the operational measures to be taken to protect the players.

“Uefa has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discriminatory behaviour and has given the power to referees to stop matches in case of any repeated racist behaviour.”

It is understood Uefa’s statement followed lobbying from the FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe) network.

The Dutch FA issued their own statement yesterday afternoon confirming some of their players heard “possible monkey chants”.

They added: “Although KNVB will not make an official complaint to UEFA, they are more than willing to answer questions of Uefa in this respect.”

FARE chief executive Piara Powar called on teams to play their ‘open’ training sessions behind closed doors if necessary. He said: “Public displays of intolerance like this - xenophobia, anti-semitism and racism - can’t be allowed to go on.

“If that means playing behind closed doors and closing down that whole open-training system then I think that needs to be done.”

Holland winger Ibrahim Afellay, who is black, said in De Telegraaf: “The only thing that you can say is that there are more madmen roaming than trapped.

“When you’re a footballer, you must be strong, because you hear it all the time - when you enter the pitch, when you take a throw-in, or when you take a corner.”

Former Holland star Ruud Gullit, now a Uefa representative, said: “Everybody was very, very upset”.

Uefa had been satisfied yesterday by claims the abusive chanting from the stands was actually a protest against the fact Krakow had not been made one of the host cities for Euro 2012.

The vitriol was said to be enough for the squad to move their equipment and training drills as far away as possible from the affected area.

Nigerian-born Emmanuel Olisadebe, who played for Poland 25 times between 2000-2004, was subject to racist abuse on moving to the eastern European country. Of the alleged monkey chants, Olisadebe believes the issue has to be faced head on. “I think it’s barbaric,” he said. “Some people feel that the European teams should have only white players playing for them and that this is a European competition and should be only for white people. This is 2012, we don’t live in that kind of world any more. We have to face this problem. We have to face it now or later and Uefa have decided to face it now and we will face it now.”

Van Bommel told anyone who denied the incident was racially-motivated to “open your ears”, adding: “If you did hear it, and don’t want to hear it, that is even worse.”