MOSCOW, October 25 (R-Sport) - UEFA president Michel Platini has demanded an investigation into a perceived breakdown in its protocols that saw no action taken over alleged racist chanting at a Champions League football match between Manchester City and CSKA Moscow this week.
The regulations of European football’s ruling body state match referee Ovidiu Hategan should have used a range of measures at his disposal to stop the hate chants during Wednesday's 2-1 victory to City in Moscow after City captain Yaya Toure brought them to his attention.
While UEFA has launched a probe into the chants themselves, which could land CSKA with a stadium ban, it is also trying to establish why its protocols were not followed.
"Platini has requested that the UEFA administration immediately conduct an internal investigation to understand why the three-step protocol established to deal with incidents of a racist nature was not implemented," UEFA said in a statement said.
The protocol's first step states the referee must halt the game immediately if he "becomes aware of serious racist behavior" and ask for a public announcement to be made for supporters to desist.
The second step gives the referee the power to send the teams into the dressing room and "suspend the match for a reasonable period of time" to allow fans to simmer down and further warnings to be announced.
The final measure is abandoning the match "as a last resort."
Toure, who has appeared 80 times for the Ivory Coast national team, voiced his anger immediately after the game.
"I'm very, very disappointed about what they did today and UEFA have to take a big sanction about that or the player of color will be always in the same situation," said Toure.
Toure suggested UEFA ban CSKA's home stadium from use in European competition "for a couple of years or maybe a couple of months" so that "the club will decide: 'OK, we have to educate the fans.'"
CSKA say there is no evidence that racist chanting took place.
