New Zealand Football have challenged Fifa to do more to tackle racism after the men’s national team abandoned Monday’s friendly with Qatar in protest at “significant racist abuse” directed at one of their players going unpunished by the officials.
The alleged incident comes after comments last week from Gianni Infantino that there should be “zero tolerance” for racism, with the Fifa president insisting that Fifa matches should be halted by referees if there is any discrimination.
Yusuf Abdurisag Yusuf, the Qatari player accused of making the alleged racial slur towards New Zealand’s Michael Boxall, has denied using any racial or discriminatory language and claimed that he himself was racially abused.
Yusuf clashed with Boxall, who is of Samoan heritage, just before half-time and despite an allegation of racism against the Qatari player being reported to Austrian referee Manuel Schüttengruber at the break, no action was taken, prompting the New Zealand squad to make the collective decision to not retake the field for the second half, a decision supported by New Zealand Football (NZF).
“We never want to see a match abandoned but some issues are bigger than football and it is important to make a stand,” NZF’s chief executive Andrew Pragnell said in a statement.
“I think when someone receives significant racial abuse, multiple people hear it, there’s multiple witnesses to something like that and nothing can be done then we’ve got a bigger problem and maybe it’s time we look at the rules,” he said.
Qatar’s FA released a statement of their own on Tuesday, denying the claims of racism.
“Yusuf Abdurisag Yusuf confirmed an exchange of words with an opponent – in the heat of the moment – shortly before half-time,” Yusuf stressed that no racial of discriminatory language was used or directed towards any player of the New Zealand team. In the contrary, Yusuf stressed that, in fact, he himself was racially abused during the match.”
Qatari FA’s president, Jassim bin Rashid Al Buenain, also released a statement of support, “strongly condemning” the “unwarranted attention [Yusuf] has received”.
In another alleged incident on Monday, the Football Association of Ireland said it would contact Fifa and Uefa over a “racist remark” made to one of its players in an under-21s game against Kuwait’s Olympic team. The match was also abandoned before full-time.
Kuwait’s FA disputed the FAI’s description of events and said the referee stopped the match because of “roughness and tension” between the players. “Kuwait Football Association ... categorically rejects such accusations,” it said on social media. “The match was stopped by the referee in the 70th minute to protect the players from potential injuries.”
Speaking at an event last week with Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior – who received racial abuse in a La Liga match at Valencia last month – Infantino insisted that Fifa matches should be halted if there is any discrimination.
“There is no football if there is racism! So let’s stop the games,” Infantino said. “The referees have this opportunity in Fifa competitions as we have this process for stopping the game, and actions have to be taken at every level, at national level as well.”
Last week it was also announced that Fifa would set up a task force to tackle racism, with Vinícius Júnior taking a prominent role. Specific details remain unclear, but it is intended that the task force will make recommendations to Fifa, with Infantino keen to stress the “importance of introducing sporting sanctions”.
NZF’s Pragnell, added: “Certainly we want to reach out to Fifa on this. You know they have recently established a task force around racism; more needs to be done to protect players from racial attacks on the field. There’s been some evolution; we don’t think it’s moving fast enough so we want to contribute to that.”
