European: Spain coach under fire for ‘racist’ comments

The football world was thrown into controversy yesterday after Spain coach Luis Aragones was caught by live microphones making racist comments apparently aimed at France and Arsenal striker Thierry Henry. Television mikes picked up Aragones trying to convince striker Jose Antonio Reyes in training on Wednesday that he was a better player than "that black s**t", seemingly referring to Reyes's club team mate Henry.

Aragones later said his comment was "a joke" aimed at motivating Reyes.

Henry is the English Premier League's leading scorer with seven goals, one ahead of his closest rival Reyes after eight games. The jibe made back-page news in tabloids, where a former manager, Ron Atkinson, resigned as a soccer television pundit in April after making racist comments over the performance of Chelsea's captain last season, Marcel Desailly. Henry's club and country teammate Robert Pires reacted angrily. "He should be sued for racial aggression", Pires told reporters at France's Clairefontaine training ground. "He shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. He needs to be cornered on this."

Reuters




[Edited on 7/10/04 by TRD]

Arsenal winger Robert Pires has condemned Spain coach Luis Aragones for his alleged racist outburst about team-mate Thierry Henry - and insisted he may even deserve to face legal action.

The Spanish Football Federation seem unlikely to punish Aragones, who is said to have used racist language in attempting to inspire Jose Reyes ahead of Saturday's World Cup qualifier.

However, the Kick It Out anti-racism campaign in England believe that UEFA should take disciplinary action against the Spain coach for his comments, which were broadcast during a training session.

Sportinglife

Strange way of motivating a player, calling his club team a black whatever. Nice to see racism is alive and well in some places.

yer, its not very good, am trying to think of a black player for spain but not having any luck right now.

he says its motivation and reyes was supposed to have defended him saying he knew aragones was joking in his tone.

reyes plays with alot of black players at arsenal so he wont adopt that kind of attitude, but if this was a younger player, being coached and the manager said that, the player could well think the same

I don't agree with that, you couldn't be that young and naive to change your views if you were in the international set-up.

Spain don't have many black players, I'm struggling to think of any.