English soccer officials have called for UEFA to oust Bulgaria from EURO 2020 competition. This time, with their team losing 3-0, dozens of Bulgarian supporters who had been involved in the monkey chanting left the stadium. In Britain, the racism was widely condemned on Tuesday both in Parliament, on social media and on the front pages of the British tabloids. The English team condemned the fans’ actions and resolved to keep playing. Bulgaria have been handed a two match stadium closure, with one suspended for two years, following the incidents of racist abuse against England. He was not alone in making racist and offensive comments. Need to see strong swift action from UEFA,” tweeted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “The vile racism we saw and heard last night has no place in football or anywhere else. Despite the antagonistic atmosphere, England’s players were widely hailed by fans at home and abroad for their handling of the abuse and their decision to continue playing in Sofia. “One thing is certain: the England team can be hugely proud of their grace under pressure. Some of the most extreme voices in Bulgaria can now be found within the government. Then, when the second incident happened the referee said, ‘Do you want to carry on?’ He said, ‘There are only four minutes to half-time, let’s get to the break and review it.’ He sat down with the players; they wanted to get out there and play.”. But for him and many other Bulgarians, the vitriol hurled by the fans could not have come as too great a surprise: Hate speech has grown more mainstream in Central Europe with the rise of nationalist parties in recent years. “Racism has no place in society or football. And on Tuesday, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov of Bulgaria forced the head of the country’s soccer federation to step down. It needs stamping out for good,” he added. Football carried on. England’s team captain, Harry Kane, posted on Twitter that he was proud of the “togetherness” that the team had shown in “disgraceful circumstances.”. England fans could be heard chanting “who put the ball in the racists net?” after Sterling scored for England. Soccer teams and organizations, he said, needed support from governments to “wage war on the racists and to marginalize their abhorrent views to the fringes of society.”. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live after the game, Mings said he could hear the racist abuse “as clear as day” but added that it was a “great night” for him as a player making his debut for England. He stepped down in 2018, blaming a “media campaign” for making his work impossible. He would go on to become the country’s deputy premier and the chairman of Bulgaria’s National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Integration Issues. The sport was roiled anew after Bulgarian fans made Nazi salutes and yelled monkey chants at England’s players in Sofia on Monday. But with the sporting world focused on his country on Tuesday, he condemned the conduct of some of the soccer fans in a Facebook post, saying it was “unacceptable” that Bulgaria should be associated with racism, claiming that the country was one of the most tolerant nations in the world. Bulgaria fans made Nazi salutes and shouted monkey chants at England during the European Championship 2020 qualifier match on Monday. In 2014, Valeri Simeonov, a prominent lawmaker in the far-right Patriotic Front, one of the United Patriots parties, declared that “parts of the Roma ethnicity” in Bulgaria have become “arrogant, ferocious anthropoids,” and compared Roma women to dogs. The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. For their part, England’s players said they wanted to let their play on the field speak for itself. According to UEFA’s three-step racism protocol, after a second warning, England was entitled to walk off the pitch if the abuse continued, but instead decided during halftime, with the score 4-0, to finish the match.
