Tottenham Hotspur have released a statement threatening a stadium ban for anyone who is found guilty of racially abusing Chelsea's Antonio Rüdiger in Sunday's 2-0 loss.
Rüdiger could clearly be seen gesturing that he had heard monkey chants from a section of the crowd. He informed captain César Azpilicueta, who in turn spoke to the referee, and three separate announcements were made to warn fans not to use such language.
Spurs took to their official website after the game to condemn any form of racism, and they are prepared to work with whoever they need to in order to identify the culprits.
"We are now conducting a thorough investigation which will include liaising with Chelsea and their players for their observations," they wrote.
"Any form of racism is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our stadium. We take any such allegations extremely seriously and shall take the strongest possible action against any individual found to be behaving in such a way, including stadium bans."
The PFA calls for a government enquiry into racism and the rise in hate crime within football and immediate and urgent action from an All-Party Group at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to address this urgent issue.
— Professional Footballers' Association (@PFA) December 22, 2019
Rüdiger himself took to Twitter after the game to call for fans around the world to stop this 'nonsense'.
"It's really sad to see racism again at a football match, but I think it's important to talk about it in public. If not, it'll be forgotten again in a couple of days (as always)," he said.
"I don't want to involve Tottenham as an entire club into this situation as I know that just a couple of idiots were the offenders. I got a lot of supportive messages on social media from Spurs fans as well in the last hours - thank you a lot for this.
"I really hope that the offenders will be found and punished soon, and in such a modern football ground like the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with dozens of TV and security cameras, it must be possible to find and subsequently punish them.
"If not, then there must have been witnesses in the stadium who saw and heard the incident. It's just such a shame that racism still exists in 2019. When will this nonsense stop?"
Chelsea boss Frank Lampard added after the game (via the Evening Standard) that he would support his players if they chose to walk off the field if they face racism again in the future.
"I would be absolutely, 100% behind them and I'm sure it would be a group decision. But we're not there yet, so it's hypothetical to a degree," he said.
"Of course I'll support Toni as we would support any of our players, or in fact any opposition players. Wherever this happens it needs to be dealt with. If it happened and it's fact, then punishment is needed and it needs to be strong."
For more from Tom Gott, follow him on Twitter!
Source : 90min