Pogba slams Lazio racists

Juventus and France midfielder blasts Lazio supporters for racial abuse during Sunday’s Italian Supercup.

LAzio fans
A section of Lazio’s stadium will be closed for one match as punishment for the abuse [GETTY]

France midfielder Paul Pogba hit out at Lazio fans for their racist chanting during the Italian Supercup, which his club Juventus won 4-0 at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico.

Pogba was on the scoresheet on Sunday as the Serie A champions beat the Italian Cup winners in the season’s traditional curtain-raiser.

But Pogba was amongst a number of players, including Ghana midfielder Kwadwo Asamoah and Italy defender Angelo Ogbonna, who is of Nigerian descent, to suffer racist abuse from a section of Lazio’s hardcore fans known for their fascist leanings.

‘Ignorant’

“We heard it, they’re ignorant,” Pogba told AFP.

“What can I do? I’m alone against 30,000 fans. They do that even though there are blacks in their team.

“It’s also a lack of respect towards their own players.

“It’s really not nice to come to a football match and hear those sort of things, but I’m a player, I concentrate on my job.”

Lazio themselves lined up with Angolan-born Belgian Luis Pedro Cavanda in their side while Nigerian midfielder Ogenyi Onazi came on as a substitute.

A section of Lazio’s stadium will be closed for one match as punishment.

Italian sporting authorities announced on Monday their decision to close Lazio’s Curva Nord after fans from the section “directed shouts and chants of a racially discriminative nature towards three players of the opposing team in the 16th and 28th minutes of the first half and continuously in the 20th and 43rd minutes of the second half.”

It was not the only incidence of football terrace-related racism of the weekend as German under-21 international Danny da Costa was subjected to racist taunts from an 1860 Munich supporter during his team Ingolstadt’s second-tier match.

The supporter was arrested at the stadium and hit with a ban.

Source: AFP