Merseyside, September 25: Merseyside Police have pledged to investigate race allegations against El Hadji Diouf with rigour, while Everton have called on the Blackburn striker to apologise and retract his claim that he was subjected to racial abuse during Sunday’s Premier League match at Goodison Park.
Diouf is being investigated by Merseyside Police for alleged racial abuse of a 14-year-old ball boy at the match and the force declared it would “not tolerate hate crime in all of its forms and all incidents of racism will be robustly investigated.” The force’s declaration is at odds with Blackburn manager Sam Allardyce’s suggestion on Wednesday that: “We haven’t heard from the police and I don’t expect to hear anything either.”
Officers are no longer investigating Dioff’s claims that bananas were thrown at him during the 3-0 defeat at Goodison. Everton’s director of communications Ian Ross said the claims should be retracted. He said: “That is a wholly false allegation and I really would like him to retract that allegation and apologise to the supporters and staff of this football club. I don’t think there’s a worse allegation in modern sport than racism and it works both ways. At the moment, and from my perspective, it looks like Mr Diouf is accusing Everton fans of racist behaviour. The police will tell you that is completely untrue.”
–Agencies