After a week which saw not one, but two ugly incidents of Chelsea supporters engaging in bigoted acts, midfielder Cesc Fabregas admits that he would be happy if his club were “taught a lesson” about tolerance.ย
Last Saturday saw a Chelsea fan racially abusing Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling at Stamford Bridge in Premier League competition while Thursday night brought Blues supporters singing anti-Semitic chants at Vidi in Europa League action. UEFA is investigating the incident at Vidi, and it’s possible Chelsea could face sanctioning over it.ย ย
Cesc Fabregas says that he would welcome such punitive action, should it make a difference for the better.
Fabregas also emphasized that the small group of Chelsea supporters who engaged in the hateful behavior don’t represent the real face of the football club.
“I don’t want that image anywhere,” Fabregas said, “but I repeat: I think it’s really unfair to point the finger at one football club, just because of one, two, three, four peopleโฆ they don’t deserve to be in the stadium.”
“If that means, or this helps in this situation, for this not to happen somewhere else all over the world – not only in football, any kind of sport or social life – I’d be happy with this.”
“If we have to be taught a lesson at Chelsea to improve whatever happens around the world, then I’m happy.ย This is not the real face of Chelsea. If something happened it will be dealt with. The focus now is on Chelsea for what happened.”
The Spaniard pointed out how there are racist bad apples in every bunch, for every team, in every sport, all over the world. He wants to see this deplorable behavior eradicated as much as the next person.
“Unfortunately, if we look around carefully all over the world, all sports, all football clubs, we will find things like that. The quicker we get rid of these people, the better,” Cesc Fabregas added.ย
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit onย WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.ย
He also contributes sociopolitical essays toย Chicago Now.ย Follow him on Twitterย andย Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.
