Toure' Meets FIFA's anti-racism head

| Monday October 28, 2013 14:46

Jeffrey Webb, a FIFA vice-president, said he had asked to meet the Ivory Coast midfielder at Stamford Bridge after Manchester City's game against Chelsea. CSKA have been charged by UEFA with racist behaviour by their fans, but will contest the allegations at a disciplinary hearing on Wednesday. Webb, head of the CONCACAF federation, said: 'I have asked to meet Yaya TourŽ. For me it's about how he felt: I would like to speak to him to find out what his experience was.'

TourŽ last week raised the prospect of black players boycotting the 2018 World Cup if the racism problem in Russia does not improve. Webb, in London for the Football Association's 150th anniversary, discussed the incident in Moscow at a meeting on Saturday morning with his fellow task force member Piara Powar, the executive director of European anti-discrimination body Fare. TourŽ complained to the referee, Ovidiu Hategan, about the abuse during the 2-1 win and Uefa are now investigating why the Romanian official did not follow the European governing body's guidelines and stop the match for a warning to be issued on the public address system.

The FIFA president Sepp Blatter, though, has insisted a boycott of the World Cup would achieve nothing. 'A boycott has never been any solution,' he said.

'We have already seen boycotts of the Olympic Games, and what was the result? Nothing - because if you have a problem, you cannot run away from it.'

(The Guardian)