The general director of Udinese, the Italian Franco Collavino, assured that the club will expel for life the fans who shouted and chanted racist songs against the Frenchman Mike Maignan, Milan's goalkeeper, which forced the suspension of this Saturday's match for several minutes.
Udinese will not tolerate racists in their stadium and, once identified by the police authorities, they will be banned for life after the unfortunate events they caused at the Blueenergy Stadium last Saturday.
The police sanction, known in Italy as a Daspo (prohibition of access to sporting events), could be temporary, so Udinese has decided that the acts have indefinite consequences regardless of the punishment from the authorities.
"A Daspo has a limited duration, but the club can decide to exclude a fan from a stadium for a longer period of time. We will work to exclude them from the stadium for life," Collavino declared on the television program 'Rai Minuto 90'.
The president assured that it was an isolated incident in which only three individuals participated. The Police have been working since Saturday with the help of the club to find the culprits.
"Udinese is determined to go and identify those responsible for these gestures and they did so immediately because at the end of the first half we activated all the authorities, including the police, to activate those responsible. What is certain is that they were one, two, at most three people. In any case there were no songs," he explained.
Maignan published a forceful statement this Sunday and called all authorities who did nothing about it as accomplices.
During the match, the goalkeeper warned the referee several times during the first hour that he was receiving racist insults until he got fed up with the situation. The goalkeeper went to the locker room and the rest of his teammates followed him inside. The stadium's public address system asked the choirs to stop.
Four minutes later, in the 38th minute of the first half, with the score 0-1 in favor of the 'Rossoneri' and some of the Udinese players asking their own fans for explanations, Maignan and the rest of the Milan players returned to the field and the referee resumed the match.
The referee warned that, in the event of new racist insults, the match would be permanently suspended. Since the events occurred, Italy has poured out messages of support for the goal and condemnation of what happened.
After what happened, the goalkeeper has received public support from the Italian Football Federation, Serie A, the Italian Government, several players and Udinese, which also condemned the events in a statement. In addition, the mayor of Udine (north) offered the goalkeeper honorary citizenship of the city.
