Chelsea Paris Metro racism: Four fans banned by club for life after 'abhorrent, nasty, offensive, arrogant and utterly unacceptable behaviour'
Four men were involved in pushing a black man off a train in Paris and chanting racially abusive songs
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Your support makes all the difference.A judge banned four Chelsea supporters from attending matches for five years yesterday for what he said was "abhorrent, nasty, offensive, arrogant and utterly unacceptable behaviour" over the racist incident on the Paris Métro in February.
The four men, Richard Barklie, 50, Josh Parsons, 20, William Simpson, 26, and Jordan Munday, 20, had appealed against banning orders for their part in the racist incident in which the Frenchman Souleymane Sylla was pushed off a Métro carriage by Chelsea fans attending the Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain.
The banning orders, created in 1999, are a civil order brought against individuals the police can demonstrate are likely to create disorder at matches. A fifth man, Dean Callis, 32, from Islington, north London, did not appeal against his banning order, which was issued on evidence which did not include the racist scenes on the Paris Métro.
Chelsea announced that they have issued life bans to all five men from attending games at Stamford Bridge, describing their behaviour as “abhorrent”.
District Judge Gareth Branston said: “This was abhorrent, nasty, offensive, arrogant and utterly unacceptable behaviour and cannot be allowed in modern, civilised society. It must be stamped out.” He added that the group of supporters had demonstrated “unmistakeable” support for racism.
At Stratford magistrates’ court, Barklie, a human rights director and former policeman, accepted that he had pushed Sylla off the train but said it was only because it was too busy. After the case he continued to protest that the video evidence showed he had not joined in the racist chanting. The judge said that Barklie had taken a “lead role” in the events on the Métro and had “joined in the chants of ‘F*** the IRA’ and ‘John Terry is a racist and that’s the way I like it’.”
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