Crawley Town 'strongly condemns' racial abuse suffered by head coach Colin Kazim-Richards following Accrington Stanley draw
Crawley Town Football Club have put out a statement after head coach Colin Kazim-Richards suffered racial abuse following the 3-3 draw against Accrington Stanley.
During his post-match interview with the club, the Reds boss gets distracted by shouting from Accrington fans.
And the 39-year old says in the interview: “You know some things are past the limit,” before directing his attention to someone else and says: “That’s very borderline you know. I don’t mind the banter but some things are very borderline.”
There is then an edit in the video before Media officer Sam Gadsdon says to Kazim-Richards: “Colin, sorry for the pause in the interview but we have had to take a brief pause in the interview dealing with an incident which I am sure more will come out about later on.”
Then later in the interview, the Reds boss said: “I just want to say thank you to the Accrington staff and their manager and their head coach and his assistants that have handled it very, very well.
"I'd like to say that because I don't want it to be a massive situation in terms of the two clubs now because it becomes a bigger problem than it was. It's sorted. It's unacceptable. And in any form, shape of life, that is the type of person I am, I'll address it straight away in a moment.”
And then shortly after the interview was posted, Crawley Town put out a statement about the incident.
The statement read: “Crawley Town Football Club strongly condemns the racial abuse suffered by Head Coach Colin Kazim-Richards following this afternoon’s fixture against Accrington Stanley.
“Kazim-Richards was subject to the abuse during this post-match interview from a minority of Accrington Stanley supporters.
“Abuse of this kind has absolutely no place in football or the wider society, and the club will be working with the relevant authorities to find those responsible.
“The club will be making no further comment at this time.”
Accrington Stanley also posted a statement. It read: “Discrimination of any form is not okay, and instances of discriminatory or prejudiced behaviour will not be tolerated by Accrington Stanley.
“Instances of discriminatory or prejudiced behaviour have no place in football or wider society, and the Football Club will be working with the relevant authorities to find those responsible.
“Please note, the Football Club will be making no further comment at this stage.”