Glen Kamara’s lawyer ripped into UEFA after European football’s governing body announced plans to join in this weekend’s anti-racism campaign.
Clubs all across British football will pull the plug on all social media accounts from 3pm on Friday until midnight on Monday to take a unified stance against a recent spate of sickening racial abuse dished out to black players online.
Other major sporting bodies have indicated their support and intention to join in the four day protest against the owners of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
UEFA announced yesterday afternoon that they too will be joining in the blanket ban - just weeks after letting Slavia Prague defender Ondrej Kudela off with a paltry 10 game ban for calling Kamara a ‘f****** monkey’ during a Europa League flash-point at Ibrox in March.
And that has outraged Kamara’s camp with lawyer Aamer Anwar branding European football’s governing body ‘pathetic’ hypocrites whose actions have encouraged racists to ‘come out of the gutter’.
Speaking exclusively to Record Sport Anwar said: “What a bunch of jokers - the irony will not be lost on many considering the pathetic & tokenistic treatment of Kudela for his racist abuse of Glen Kamara.
“UEFA’s failure to publicly take robust and punitive action compounded the racism that Glen faced - UEFA gave confidence to the racists to come out of the gutter, who knew there are no consequences for their race hate or even their club.
“I know of no other employment where such hate would be tolerated, but UEFA is only interested in making money rather than the well being of black players.”
Kamara and some of his Rangers team mates were targeted with vile racist taunts following the furious scenes at the end of the second leg of their last 16 tie with the Czechs.
But UEFA also hammered the Ibrox man with a three game ban for confronting Kudela in the tunnel after the final whistle.
It is hoped this weekend’s high profile joint approach will help pile pressure on the social media giants to do more crack down on racist and the filled behaviour across their platforms.
The football authorities are calling for a range of urgent action including filtering, blocking and swift takedowns of offensive posts, an improved verification process and re-registration prevention, plus active assistance for police to identify and prosecute originators of illegal content.
And Ceferin gave the initiative his ‘unequivocal backing’.
He said: “There have been abuses both on the pitch and on social media. This is unacceptable and needs to be stopped, with the help of the public and legislative authorities and the social media giants.
“Allowing a culture of hatred to grow with impunity is dangerous, very dangerous, not only for football, but for society as a whole.
“This is why we are supporting this initiative. It is time for football to take a stand and I have been impressed with the solidarity shown by the players, clubs and stakeholders.
“I urge everyone – players, clubs and national associations – to lodge formal complaints whenever players, coaches, referees or officials are victims of unacceptable tweets or messages. We’ve had enough of these cowards who hide behind their anonymity to spew out their noxious ideologies.”
