PARIS – Ghanaian football player Solomon Opoku heard the Serbian fans screaming racist insults and turned around as they set upon him, hurling punches and abuse.
The attackers were supporters of Opoku’s team, determined that a black player shouldn’t take the field for their club.
Two days later, Olympique Marseille president Pape Diouf got a firsthand look at what his black players endure when he traveled to the team’s UEFA Cup match at Zenit St. Petersburg in northern Russia.
“What we went through was hideous,” Diouf, who was black, said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It was the classic stuff, the bananas thrown at black players warming up.” (AP)