ZURICH // Fifa have opened an investigation into allegations that Croatia's fans racially abused the England striker Emile Heskey during a World Cup qualifying match last week. World football's governing body said today that they have begun disciplinary proceedings after England's Football Association lodged an official complaint late last night. Racist chants were directed at the Wigan forward at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb after he was booked for a challenge on the Croatia captain Niko Kovac during the second half of England's 4-1 victory.
Heskey later branded the fans "ignorant people" and said he tried to ignore the chants. Steve Bruce, who manages Heskey at Wigan, said last week he was shocked by the abuse from what he called "morons". "If you watched the game, you could hear monkey chants and all the rest of it, which I thought we'd seen the back of," Bruce said. The Croatia Football Federation spokesman Davor Gavran claimed the chants were "in fact very much isolated".
"They seemed rather an expression of frustration from fans at how the match is going on, than an attempt to insult someone," Mr Gavran said. "We condemn those individual cases." The Croatian FA were punished in June for fans' racism during the European Championships in Austria and Switzerland. They were fined 20,000 Swiss francs (Dh65,746) after European football's governing body Uefa decided their fans "were guilty of displaying a racist banner and showing racist conduct" towards Turkey fans during the teams' Euro 2008 quarter-final match.
*AP
