Friday, October 1, 2021 at 07:52• Yanick Vos • Last update: 08:03

Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara was whistled at every contact with the ball and booed by schoolchildren on Thursday evening in the Europa League match against Sparta Prague (1-0) in the Czech Republic. Most likely this was a reaction to a major incident from last season. Rangers coach Steven Gerrard speaks shame about the treatment of his player.

Last season, Kamara was racially treated by Ondrej Kúdula in a Europa League match against fellow townsman Slavia Prague. UEFA therefore imposed a 10-match suspension on the Czech international. As a result, the 34-year-old Slavia Prague defender saw the European Championship pass by with the national team. The schoolchildren present apparently had not forgotten that incident and pointed to Kamara as the scapegoat at every ball contact on Thursday evening. To make matters worse, the Finnish international did not make it to the end of the match. Fifteen minutes before the end, he was sent off with a red card.

10,000 schoolchildren between the ages of six and fourteen were exceptionally present on Thursday at the match between Sparta Prague and Rangers. The Czech top club initially had to play a match without an audience, because supporters had misbehaved in the Champions League preliminary round against AS Monaco. The French midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni was racially treated in that game; supporters made monkey noises. However, UEFA was lenient and allowed the group of schoolchildren against Rangers on Thursday evening.

Gerrard late in conversation with BT Sports know that he is not surprised by the behavior of the home crowd. “We play behind closed doors, apparently for a reason… It’s not the first time there have been problems here,” said the trainer, who did not want to go into the situation too deeply. According to Gerrard, research should show how the public has actually misbehaved. “But again, I’m not surprised by this. This has happened here before. Not enough is being done. Tonight we should have played in front of empty stands. They’re kids, okay… But it’s almost a full house and they’re hardly punished this way. That’s not the reason we lost, but stick to the penalty.”