A representative of Dynamo Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium has denied reports that their director proposed to combat racism on the terraces by segregating black supporters.
After racist scenes on the terraces during the recent Champions League tie with Chelsea, Uefa opened disciplinary proceedings against Dynamo Kyiv, who are facing three charges including one of racist behaviour by supporters at the Olympic Stadium. Footage of an apparent attack on four black fans was obtained by the anti-discrimination network Fare, and passed to Uefa's disciplinary body.
Reports quoted the director of the stadium, Volodimir Spilchenko, as suggesting that one of the potential solutions was to have a “black sector” in the ground but a statement posted on the stadium’s Facebook page argues otherwise.
“Unfortunately, the journalists who did the interview used only the first sentence of the possibility of creating a separate sector and completely ignored the next sentence, in which the executive director expressed his position,” read the statement. “[Volodimir] categorically condemned the idea of creating a separate sector or any other segmentation separate groups of supporters. He also said that he always opposed the construction of additional barriers for fans. But these words were not included.”
In an interview reported by the Washington Post, Spilchenko said: “We are trying, maybe, to make a separate sector [for black fans] in order to avoid racism.
Responding to reports of the proposal to segregate supporters based on their skin colour, the Fare executive director, Piara Powar, said: “This was a fearsome attack and then we have people who think it’s quite within the realms of a sensible response to just be trivialising the matter by suggesting separate areas of the stadium. It’s utterly ridiculous.
“This isn’t an initiative that comes from him, but it’s a measure of how hopeless some of these guys are at that level and how trivial they think the whole issue is.
“There aren’t enough black fans in Kiev – in the whole of Kiev, let alone attending Dynamo Kiev – to have a separate stand. And if there were we’d know what would happen. They’d just be attacked.”
Guardian services
