FIFA fines Russian FA over discriminatory chants

The Russian Football Union has been fined 30,000 Swiss francs (€25,000/$30,000) by FIFA following discriminatory chants during March’s international friendly between Russia and France in St Petersburg, world football’s governing body has confirmed.

During France’s 3-1 win over the 2018 World Cup hosts, Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba and Barcelona forward Ousmane Dembele were seemingly targeted by monkey noises from a section of the home support.

Following an investigation by its Disciplinary Committee, FIFA confirmed it had decided to act due to the “gravity of the incident”, while weighing this against “the limited number of fans involved” in a breach of its disciplinary code.

“FIFA has a zero-tolerance approach to discrimination and has been implementing a series of measures to fight discrimination and promote diversity, including an anti-discrimination monitoring system, which has been active since 2015, to observe and report on all 871 matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers and, matches of the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017 and the 2018 FIFA World Cup,” a statement from FIFA read.

“At its tournaments, including the 2018 FIFA World Cup, FIFA has also introduced a three-step procedure in case of discriminatory incidents, which allows referees to actively intervene to make the discriminatory behaviour stop.”

Elsewhere, former general secretary of the Guatemalan Football Association Hector Trujillo has been handed a life ban from all football-related activities by FIFA’s independent Ethics Committee.

The ban comes into effect immediately and Trujillo, who pleaded guilty in a US court to wire fraud and wire fraud conspiracy last June, has also been fined $200,000.