The President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that the scandal with an allegedly racist statement referees during the Champions League match between Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Istanbul show how strong racist tendencies are in modern France, reports agency Reuters .
“This attitude is unforgivable. We continue to believe that (…) France has become a country where racist rhetoric and actions are intensifying,” Erdogan said at a press conference in Ankara.
Earlier on December 9, the reserve referee Sebastian Choltescu, because of whose statements the game was interrupted, explained . “Negru means” black “in Romanian. I am not a racist,” the referee stressed.
Both teams left the field 14 minutes into the match after Cioltescu allegedly named Turkish assistant coach Pierre Vebo “negro”. “The black guy is there, on the bench. Go check who he is. The black guy, you can’t behave like that,” Choltescu told the chief arbiter of the meeting Ovidiu Hatseganu , specifying who should be punished.