Slavia’s win at Ibrox was overshadowed by the incident towards the end of the game
Steven Gerrard has called on Uefa to take immediate action against Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela for an alleged racist comment directed at Rangers’ Glen Kamara on Thursday night.
The recently crowned Scottish champions were eliminated from the Europa League after a 2-0 defeat at home to the Czech side, but Slavia’s victory was overshadowed by an incident in the 87th minute.
Kudela was seen shouting in Kamara’s ear as full-time approached, with the Rangers midfielder reacting furiously and clearly heard alleging that Kudela had racially abused him.
While Slavia have since strongly denied the claims through president Jaroslav Tvrdik, Gerrard made clear after the game that he firmly believed his player.
“I feel angry,” Gerrard said after full-time. “It’s difficult to describe how I feel now because I know Glen and I trust him 100 percent. It’s extremely disappointing. There is too much of it happening around football.
“The Slavia player has caused this and he has also caused a situation like this to escalate even further because straight away you get the fans joining in and the racism grows and grows.
“Something needs to happen quickly. That is above me. But 100 per cent, I stand beside Glen Kamara, whatever happens going forward.”
Cameras picked up Gerrard in a heated exchange with Slavia coaches and representatives after full-time.
words exchanged on the field after fulltime, easy to make out what Gerrard thinks pic.twitter.com/wIPzYqpavC
— RED WHITE AND BLUE (@_R_W_B_) March 18, 2021
Kamara’s Rangers’ teammates Bongani Zungu and Connor Goldson were also seen confronting Kudela after his alleged comment, with reports claiming players from both sides were involved in an incident in the tunnel after the game. Uefa have confirmed this in a statement.
“Uefa is aware on an incident which occurred in the tunnel after the end of the match and which involved some players of both teams,” it read.
“We are waiting to receive detailed reports of the match officials who were present at the game before commenting further.”
