Racism Alive and Well at Torpedo Moscow

By: Daryl | April 3rd, 2008

V�tiaz Tchuisse Efforts to kick racism out of Russian football took a bit of a blow this weekend when FC Vityaz Podolsk’s Cameroonian fullback Jerry-Christian Tchuissé was sent off six minutes from full time. Not for a horror tackle or for abusing the ref, but for responding to Torpedo Moscow fans who’d been abusing him with boos, whistles and racist taunts for 84 minutes.

And Tchuissé didn’t karate kick his way through the crowd Cantona style, he just made a gesture (which I assume means middle finger or similar) when the crowd (and this is translated from Russian to Spanish to English, but retains its meaning) suggested he “go home.”

There’s an argument that Tchuissé’s response was inciting the crowd, but after 84 minutes of abuse it’s very clearly the other way around. So the ref who dished out that red is either extremely insensitive or suffering from a severe common sense deficiency.

The very small silver lining here is that the Russian Football Federation have taken some action by fining Torpedo Moscow 55,000 rubles ($2,320 US) for the fans’ behaviour.

The irony here – probably lost on Torpdeo fans – is that Tchuissé has been playing in Russia for over a decade and is now a Russian citizen.

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Lugo

And who cares if the racists think he's one of them or not? Those people should be scorned at instead of given wings like you're doing with such post, Jacob. He's Russian on my book as he should be on the books of any decent human being on this planet.
Ian

I'd have to agree, fitz. At least it should be on his record with the FA in Russia.
fitz

The ref should be punished in some form too, don't you think? I know players can't just go around giving obscene gestures, but if nothing else the ref allowed the game to reach that point by doing nothing about the fans.
Ian

A real shame, on many levels. Today, with Zenit's 4-1 away win in the UEFA Cup quarters, the talk about the Russian league should have been its increasing strength and relevance. A ref would be well within his rights to suspend a game for this kind of behavior, if it really went on that long, and that would surely be a more even-handed response than to send off the victim. It's funny (well, ironic, if not funny) that the player is actually now a Russian citizen. I guess anyone ignorant enough to scream racist blather at a player is also too ignorant to read up on them first, or to read at all.