Extremely disappointed but not surprised by chants against Glen Kamara, admits Steven Gerrard
In light of Glen Kamara being singled out, Rangers manager Steven Gerrard confessed that he’s disappointed but not surprised that the midfielder was subject to racist abuse by children. The Rangers midfielder was subject to chants and jeers from a stadium packed with 10,000 children.
While Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela was banned for 10 games by UEFA after Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara complained that the defender had racially abused him, things haven’t gotten better for Kamara. Instead, with the Scottish Premiership Champions facing Sparta Prague on Thursday, in the Europa League group stages, the midfielder was jeered at and targeted by the stadium. That was despite the fact that the stadium was closed to fans and open to 10,000 children following racial abuse against Monaco’s Aurelien Tchouameni.
However, that didn’t stop things as Kamara was targeted, jeered at and booed the entire game with things getting even worse following the midfielder’s sending off in the second half. It saw Steven Gerrard admit that while he’s “extremely disappointed” by the incident, he isn’t “surprised” that it happened as the “powers that be” need to do more. The Rangers boss also added that he wasn’t aware of the chants during the game but further revealed that things need to change.
"If they're facts and that's the truth, then I'm extremely disappointed, but not surprised... We need the facts, we need confirmation if that's the truth before I comment. Not just myself, everyone across the world is asking for more and bigger and better and more extreme punishments in terms of racism," Gerrard said, reported the BBC.
“It needs to be eradicated. But until the powers that be do more and treat it more seriously, until that happens, we're going to be dealing with these questions for a longer time."