Tuesday, October 5, 2021 at 10:55 PM• Last update: 22:57

UEFA will investigate Thursday’s Europa League match between Sparta Prague and Rangers (1-0). Glen Kamara was whistled and booed by school children at every touch of the ball. The Rangers midfielder was racially treated in the Czech Republic by Slavia Prague defender Ondrej Kudela last season.

Sparta Prague came in negative news last week due to the incident surrounding Kamara. The Czech team should actually play the Europa League match with Rangers without an audience, because supporters had misbehaved in the Champions League preliminary round against AS Monaco. French midfielder Aurélien Tchouaméni was racially treated in that game: supporters made monkey noises. However, UEFA was lenient and allowed about ten thousand schoolchildren against Rangers on Thursday evening.

After the game, Rangers coach Steven Gerrard disapproved of Kamara’s constant whistling by the very young home crowd and urged UEFA to act hard. The Czech Foreign Minister invited the British ambassador to talk about the incident and the European Football Association has now confirmed on its website that an investigation will take place. The association will provide an update as soon as the results are known.

Sparta Prague said the Scottish champion’s accusations were unfounded the day after the game and even downplayed the racism incident. “Stop attacking our children! It is unbelievable that after the game we have to see innocent children being attacked and faced with baseless accusations,” the Czechs said. “Insulting children online is unacceptable, desperate and ridiculous. And extremely cowardly. You misrepresent the behavior of children, you claim the right to judge the expression of emotions of six-year-old children who have no idea what racism is. It’s shameless.”

In March, Finland’s Kamara had complained about racist insults by Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kúdela during a Rangers match in the Europa League. UEFA therefore imposed a 10-match suspension on the Czech international. As a result, the defender saw the European Championship with the national team pass by, which was very likely the reason for the ten thousand school children to whistle Kamara continuously. This reached the peak when the midfielder had to go off the field with a red card in the second half.