Spanish FA condemns anti-Muslim chants that marred Egypt friendly
Lamine Yamal (L) was the only Spain player to start both of Spain's friendlies this month (Lluis GENE) Spain's football federation and coach Luis de la Fuente condemned anti-Muslim chants that marred the 0-0 draw with Egypt in Barcelona on Tuesday in a pre-World Cup friendly. Egypt's national anthem was jeered and the public announcement system at RCDE Stadium appealed to fans more than once to refrain from making offensive comments. It was the latest in a string of similar incidents to overshadow Spanish football in recent years, with Real Madrid's Brazilian attacker Vinicius Junior in particular repeatedly racially abused.
"What we've done is condemn these kinds of attitudes and to say they must not be repeated," said Rafael Louzan, president of the Spanish Football Federation. He called it "specific and isolated situations". De la Fuente also condemned the behaviour of a section of the 35,000 crowd.
"It's intolerable," he told reporters as soon as he sat down in the press room. "Violent people use football to carve out a space for themselves. "They must be removed from society, identified, and kept as far away as possible," the 64-year-old added.
The game in Catalonia was moved from Qatar due to the war in the Middle East and was played out in a hostile environment from the start. The European champions were wasteful in attack in their penultimate friendly on home turf before they face Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia and Uruguay in Group H in North America this summer. Spain are reportedly set to play Iraq on June 4 before playing Peru in Mexico four days later in their final games before the World Cup.
Veteran coach De la Fuente made 10 changes from Friday's 3-0 friendly win over Serbia with Barcelona winger Lamine Yamal the only player to keep his place. Egypt were without their talisman Mohamed Salah with the Liverpool attacker sidelined since suffering a muscle problem against Galatasaray on March 18. The English club are hopeful he could return in this weekend's FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester City.