UEFA announced on Friday that it has appointed a disciplinary inspector to assess a possible violation of its regulations by Spanish national team players Álvaro Morata and Rodrigo Hernández during the celebration of Germany’s Euro 2015 in Madrid on Monday 15th.
At this celebration, both sang the song Gibraltar is Spanish The Gibraltar Football Association (FA) filed an official complaint to UEFA on 16 July, describing the Spanish team’s celebration as “extremely provocative and insulting”.
The FA also described the chants as “unacceptable” and said that “there is no place for such behaviour in football”. The Government of Gibraltar was “disappointed” with the celebrations and described the chants as “stale comments about Gibraltar”. In its opinion, they were “unnecessarily mixing a great sporting success with discriminatory political statements”. The Government of Gibraltar also said that these allusions were “hugely offensive to Gibraltarians”.
For its part, the Spanish government played down the events, according to the spokesperson and Minister for Education, Vocational Training and Sports, Pilar Alegría. “If the context is always important, in the case of the chants that took place yesterday, it is even more so. There was a great celebration yesterday, and what could be heard must be put in the context in which it took place. No one has any doubt that the foreign policy of a country is established by the Government of that country,” she added.
UEFA admitted Gibraltar as a full member in May 2013, following a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and the Spanish government.
You can follow Morning Express Sports on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.