Spain-Egypt friendly overshadowed by racist chants inside RCDE Stadium | OneFootball

Spain and Egypt played out a goalless draw at the RCDE Stadium on Tuesday, but that was far from the main talking point. La Liga has had several racist incident cases happen during matches in recent years, and one took place in Cornellà-El Prat during this international friendly.

As per Cadena SER, fans in attendance were seen chanting “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Muslim”, which was in relation to the Egyptian players. The visiting side’s national team was also loudly booed pre-match.

Despite this, the anti-racism protocol was not activated, with the chants seemingly not brought to the attention of referee Georgi Kabakov. It meant that play continued while there chants were going on.

Spanish football’s racism problem comes back into focus

The situation here is an abhorrent one, and it once again highlights the big problem of racism that exists in Spanish football, and has done so for a number of years. It must also be remembered that Spain are due to co-host the 2030 World Cup alongside Portugal and Morocco, the latter of which being a predominantly Muslim country.

Previously, Vinicius Junior – who has regularly been targeted by racist abuse – called for Spain to be stripped of their World Cup hosting rights if the issue does not improve in the coming years. Those remarks came in 2024, and this case at the RCDE Stadium has shown that there has been little progress towards an improvement in the 18 months since.

It remains to be seen what action is taken towards the supporters involved in the racist chanting, but considering that the Spanish Football Federation has taken a zero-tolerance approach to similar cases in the past, it would be no surprise to see hefty punishments fall the way of those that took part in yet another dark and disappointing episode for Spanish football.