Chelsea Return to Scene of Ugly Racist Episode a Year Later

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of a small group of Chelsea FC supporters singing racist chants and abusing/harassing a man at a Paris metro station before the Blues Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain. Coincidentally, UEFA Champions League football returns tonight and Chelsea are once again taking on PSG.

Five supporters (who received lifetime bans from Stamford Bridge, and a five year football ban) prohibited a black man named Souleymane Sylla from entering a Paris subway train a year ago and then sang “we’re racist and that’s the way we like it” (video available here).

Chelsea invited Sylla to attend the return leg against Paris Saint-Germain in March, but he did not take up that offer. The experience was still to raw and fresh at the time. Chelsea have kept that offer open and it remains on the table should he reconsider.

“I felt ashamed when I found out but these supporters do not represent the club,” said then Chelsea FC Manager Jose Mourinho at the time.

“We feel very sorry about it. We want to fight it. We feel ashamed and we want to apologize to the gentleman.”

Today, Paul Canoville, Chelsea’s first ever black player told ESPN FC that he heard about the Paris Metro video before he saw it.

“I got a text saying, ‘Canners, it still hasn’t changed from when you played,'” he said. “I didn’t understand it until I saw the news. I was very upset.

“I would have really liked to meet [Sylla], just to show him that this isn’t part of Chelsea [anymore]. These are ignorant people that brought down the name of the club. As soon as people saw the video, the same words were on everybody’s tongues: ‘Yep, that’s the same old Chelsea.'”

The article points out how Chelsea have long endured a difficult relationship with racism. Hooligan firm the Chelsea Shed Boys — later known as the Chelsea Headhunters — and their ties to white supremacist groups brought the club’s name low during the 1970 and ’80s, when violence at football stadiums was rife, and continue to exist on the fringes of the club’s supporters.

Sylla was so traumatized by the incident that he missed six months of work and didn’t even take the metro again until just nine days ago. But now, indeed time heals all wounds as Sylla has accepted Paris Saint-Germain’s invitation to watch the London club’s Champions League last-16 first leg at Parc des Princes tomorrow.

Sylla’s lawyer Jim Michel-Gabriel told Press Association Sport:

“Paris St Germain invited my client to be there and I think he will be there, with me.

“He has decided to go to the match as life must carry on.”

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.

He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram

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