Spurs and police report “no evidence” to support Rudiger racism claims

It comes after a lengthy investigation. Spurs and the police in London have concluded investigations into the alleged racist abuse suffered by Chelsea's Antonio Rudiger in a game last month, and despite "exhausting all avenues of investigation" they confirmed that "no evidence to support the allegation of racial abuse". The defender reported racist abuse to the match officials in the game on the 22nd December, and there were three announcements made at the New White Hart Lane to deter the suspected abuse from taking place. In a statement released this evening, Spurs announced that no evidence to support Rudiger's claim could be found;

"The Club and the Metropolitan Police have now exhausted all avenues of investigation following the reported incident at our home fixture against Chelsea on 22 December. We carried out extensive reviews of CCTV images and footage, working with professional lip readers. All materials and reports have now also been reviewed by the police who have carried out their own investigation. The police have notified us today that, having reviewed and investigated, they have closed the crime report as they can find no evidence to support the allegation of racial abuse."

The statement goes on to publicly support the Chelsea defender's reporting of the alleged incident to match officials;

"We fully support Antonio Rudiger with the action that he took - however there is no evidence to corroborate or contradict the allegation and as such neither ourselves nor the police are in a position to take any further action. We are fiercely proud of our anti-racism work and our zero tolerance of any form of discrimination. This is one reason why we have attributed so much time and resource to investigating this matter. Had we identified anyone guilty of this we were intent on issuing them with a lifetime ban from our stadium as they would have no place among our proud, diverse fan base. If any new information comes to light, this will be fully investigated."

There have been a number of high profile incidents involving racist, homophobic and sectarian abuse from fans in English football in recent months.