Chelsea allege that ‘quite a lot of players were subjected to racist abuse’ during an Under-19 UEFA Youth League game against Qarabag in Baku on Wednesday night.
Because the senior team took on the Azerbaijani side late on Wednesday night, the Under-19 side was also in motion in Baku.
The English side won 5-0 however the fixture was marred by racial abuse, with the sport halted after Sol Gordon scored the primary goal of the sport on 58 minutes.
A person behind the goal gave the impression to be exhibiting racist behaviour, with witnesses telling the BBC that monkey gestures and noises were seen and heard.
Players complained to Ukrainian referee Dmytro Kubriak, which led to the sport being paused, with the chance that Chelsea may not play on, but they did and won convincingly.
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The Blues issued an announcement after the sport condemning the incident and calling for an investigation from UEFA.
A Chelsea statement read: ‘We’re aware of an incident during today’s UEFA Youth League match in Azerbaijan through which, after scoring, quite a lot of our players were subjected to racist abuse from a person in the gang.
‘Racism and all types of discriminatory behaviour are completely unacceptable and haven’t any place in football or indeed in society. We strongly condemn the actions of the person responsible.
‘Our players have the total support of everyone on the club, and now we have raised the incident immediately with the UEFA match delegate and residential club. We expect this matter to be investigated fully under UEFA’s disciplinary procedures.
‘We’re happy with the best way our players and staff responded to the incident on the pitch, swiftly reporting it to the referee, and commend those for coping with the matter professionally and appropriately according to UEFA protocols.
‘Chelsea Football Club is immensely happy with the range inside our team and across our entire club and can proceed to work with UEFA to be sure that those chargeable for discriminatory behaviour in football are held accountable.’
A press release from Qarabag in response read: ‘We’re sorry about this incident. It doesn’t reflect the values of our club. We’ll investigate it thoroughly.’
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