Euro 2012
Dutch warn about racist chants
2012-06-08 11:25
Krakow - Netherlands captain Mark van Bommel
made it clear on Friday that his team won't tolerate any racist chants
at the European Championship following controversy at one of his team's
training sessions.
"We will not accept that one of us is
confronted with monkey chants," Van Bommel told Friday's edition of De
Telegraaf. "We will point it out to the referee and if such chants are
heard again we will ask him to intervene."
The Dutch have been training at Krakow, before leaving to face Denmark in their Group B opener on Saturday at Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Van
Bommel had been quoted as complaining about racist chants during a
training session that was open to the public on Wednesday.
Some 25 000
spectators made a lot of noise on one side of the stadium, while the
Dutch team carried out its shooting practice and ball drills on the
other.
Van Bommel's team-mate Ibrahim Afellay told De Telegraaf
that the jeers had "saddened him." However, the Dutch
federation said it did not file a complaint about any racist chanting,
and UEFA said that it had not received any such complaints.
Dutch defender Jetro Willems, who is black, told AD newspaper he
hadn't heard any such jeers.
The training session came only hours
after the team, which for decades has been a reflection of the
multicultural makeup of the nation, had made solemn and emotional visits
to the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps close to Krakow.
Racism has emerged as an early issue for the Euro 2012 tournament in Poland and Ukraine.
A
recent British television documentary, entitled "Stadiums of Hate",
fueled concerns about fans' behavior at club matches. The program was
shown in Poland earlier this week and the issue dominated questions at
the first press conference at the tournament of UEFA President Michel
Platini.
Platini promised that referees will stop matches if
players suffer racist abuse. But he also warned players they would be
shown a yellow card if they acted alone by walking off the pitch.