Sunday evening the football stadium of Ploiești in southern Romania was loud from anti-Hungarian chants during the Romania-Malta Euro 2020 qualifiers. Again.
Similar to the match against Spain in the National Arena in Bucharest last Thursday and the first game against Malta in June, the Romanian Ultras in the tribunes threw invectives at Hungary and the Hungarians in Ploiești. They started their injurious and insulting chants directed at Hungary and Hungarians at the beginning of the game. Slogans, like “Hungary suck our d*ck” (“Ungaria ne suge p****”) could be heard for minutes.
Because of the incidents in the 19th minute of the game PR official of the Romanian Football Association (FRF) Gabriel Berceanu despairingly asked the fans through the public announcement system to stop their xenophobic behavior. He also pleaded that the Romanian team is already in a sensitive situation because of the happenings at the game against Spain:
“We shouldn’t risk any further playing our home games against Norway and Sweden behind closed doors, which are extremely important for our qualification to the 2020 European Championships. Do not use xenophobic expressions. Thank you! ”
– was heard from the loudspeakers of the Ilie Oană stadium.
But the request was not heard and the ultras at this point started to call the national federation and the European Football Association (UEFA) unprintable names, and demanded “freedom of expression” for the fans.
Berceanu in his speech was referring to the last game Romania played against Spain, where also some of the home fans were insulting the Hungarians and Hungary. Besides the unprintable chants also the „Out with the Hungarians from the country!” (“Afară cu ungurii din țară!”) slogan was shouted. In addition to this even the international press wrote about the incident, when some Romanian fans disgracefully booed and chanted during the one minute’s silence for the previous Spanish captain’s daughter, who died at age of 9 only few days earlier, after loosing her battle with cancer.
According to the Romanian sports press, because of these incidents the Romanian national team could be punished by UEFA and may have to play their forthcoming home games – against Norway and Sweden – behind closed doors.
Title image: gsp.ro
