Chelsea football club has appealed for its own fans to help track down a group of supporters who prevented a black man from boarding a Paris Métro train and celebrated by chanting racist slogans.
The club issued a strong condemnation of the incident, captured on video obtained by the Guardian, in which a group of supporters force a man back on to the platform at the Richelieu–Drouot station before Chelsea’s Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night. They are then heard chanting: “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it.”
Chelsea, the English FA and European football authorities all deplored the incident. “Such behaviour is abhorrent and has no place in football or society,” the club said in a statement. “We will support any criminal action against those involved in such behaviour, and should evidence point to the involvement of Chelsea season ticket holders or members the club will take the strongest possible action against them, including banning orders.”
David Cameron, the prime minister, said the incident was “extremely disturbing and very worrying”.
The club urged anyone who witnessed the incident to get in touch, publishing an email address on its website. It promised confidentiality for any tipoffs.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office confirmed to the Guardian that police had begun an investigation into crimes of racial violence on public transport. If found guilty, those responsible could face at least three years in prison and a fine of €45,000 (£33,000).
In London, the Metropolitan police said it would study the video. The Met said it took episodes of British football fans being involved in criminality or disorder very seriously, even if the incidents took place abroad.
If it identifies those involved in the train incident, the Met said it would consider applying for orders to stop them travelling to future football games. “We will examine the footage with a view to seeing if we can apply for football-banning orders,” Scotland Yard said.
A Chelsea fan who was on the train claimed the supporters pushed the man off the carriage because he was a PSG fan rather than for being black. Season ticket holder Mitchell McCoy, 17, from Fulham in London, told the Press Association: “We got on the train and at the station where the man was trying to get on we stopped for a couple of minutes.
“He tried to get on and a few people were pushing him off because there wasn’t much space on the carriage. You couldn’t move.
“People were saying it was because he was black. It’s not true at all. I personally think it’s because he was a PSG fan. Obviously they didn’t want him anywhere with us. That guy in the video tried to force himself on, so they pushed him off.”
Mitchell, who travelled to Paris with five friends, admitted that fans chanted, “We’re racist and that’s the way we like it”, but said it was a reference to Chelsea captain John Terry. Asked why that song was sung at that moment, he said: “I’m not sure. I didn’t sing it.”
Terry was banned for four matches and fined £220,000 by the Football Association in October 2012 for racially abusing then QPR player Anton Ferdinand.
The video was filmed by Paul Nolan, a Briton who lives in Paris. He started filming the scene on his mobile phone after witnessing the fans’ disruptive behaviour. The fans were captured pushing a black man back on to the platform as he tried to board the train.
“I was ashamed of their behaviour, as a fellow Brit,” Nolan told the Guardian. “The black man was pushed quite forcefully. If he hadn’t been quite a big guy himself he could have been knocked over. He gets pushed and humiliated.”
Police in Paris were working to identify the victim of the assault, as well as the fans.
France, deeply offended by the footage of the Chelsea fans, has long been soul-searching over racism in the ranks of its own football supporters and in sport in general.
Paris Saint-Germain, where some supporters’ groups in the 70s and 80s prided themselves on taking inspiration from British hooligans, has itself has been at the centre of repeated rows over racism and race violence between its own supporters.
The polarisation of the club’s stands into separate areas that are almost all white and stands that are ethnically mixed proved a backdrop for violent race altercations between the club’s own fans. In recent years, some PSG supporters’ clubs complained of a “climate of racist terror” created by rival fans within the same club.
While the 1998 World Cup victory by a multicultural “black, blanc, beur” French football team led by Zinedine Zidane was hailed as a new beginning for a mixed nation, it did not stop the race rows and monkey chants in French football. In 2011 France was plunged into a fresh race crisis after claims that football officials tried to limit black and Arab players on youth training schemes to make the French team more white.
But on Wednesday, the focus was on the behaviour of English fans. Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, deputy leader of France’s conservative opposition UMP party, called the Chelsea fan violence “abject and intolerable”. She said on Twitter comment that “sanctions are essential”.
Comportement abject et intolérable des supporters de #Chelsea dans le métro : #racisme et ségrégation. Des sanctions sont indispensables.
— N. Kosciusko-Morizet (@nk_m) February 18, 2015
The Representative Council for Black Associations (Cran), which campaigns for minority rights in France, said the Chelsea fans had imposed “apartheid” in the Paris Métro on Tuesday night. “This racism is not the exception; it is becoming the norm in one of the most popular sports which generates a lot of money,” Cran said in a statement.
The incident raised echoes of the 1970s and 1980s, when English football was plagued by fan violence and black players were regularly subjected to racist abuse by supporters. The game has worked hard to stamp out racism since then, but low-level abuse such as that meted out on Tuesday persists.
Tim Rolls, of the Chelsea supporters’ association, condemned the incident and insisted that such behaviour was confined to a tiny minority of fans. He said: “We, the supporters’ trust, condemn the chanting and we support what the club have said about it. It is half a dozen people. I haven’t seen an incident of that type for decades in football. It is a great shame that it happened and it can never be justified or defended.
“The point has to be made – there were 2,000 Chelsea fans there. The vast majority are not racist. We are a multiracial club; you only have to look at our team. It is depressing that this has happened. It has to be put in a wider context. The vast majority of fans are not racist.”
Herman Ouseley, chairman of Kick It Out, which campaigns to eradicate racism in football, said the incident showed more needed to be done, despite the advances made by the sport – including Chelsea – in recent years. “You cannot be complacent and think the actions you’re taking are sufficient to deal with the scourge of racism, sexism, homophobia and antisemitism,” he said.
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