The Russian Football Union (RFU) has shockingly denied that Emmanuel Frimpong was racially abused despite irrefutable video evidence that monkey chants were directed at the Ghana midfielder during a league match.
The RFU disciplinary committee claimed on Wednesday that it found no evidence of racism after Frimpong was subjected to monkey chants during the first match of the Russian Premier League season last Friday between his side UFA and Spartak Moscow.
The 23-year-old former Arsenal player was sent off after he raised a finger to the crowd in response and has been suspended for two Premier League matches.
He was given this ban despite video evidence during the match that the Ghanaian was racially abuse and shockingly the head of the disciplinary committee, Artur Grigoryants, said there was no sign for the abuse which shows the RFU's consistent cover-up of the racial abuse of black footballers in Russia.
“The match inspector and the match delegate did not note that there had been any disciplinary violations by Spartak supporters towards Frimpong in the match reports," Artur Grigoryants said.
“There were no instances of racism. We have no grounds to take disciplinary sanctions against Spartak. Frimpong has been banned for two games for the offensive gesture he displayed towards the stands.”
The midfielder, who apologised for his reaction, was invited to attend the hearing but did not appear.
The Russian Premier League’s security director, Alexander Meytin, also said the league had not found any evidence of Spartak fans racially abusing Frimpong.
“The video cameras did not pick up any evidence of gestures. There were no gestures aimed at the footballer,” Meytin said in an interview.
“We asked the stewards. They did not see anything either from the fans,” he added.
Football’s world governing body Fifa had said it would ask the RFU to provide details of the incident.
Watch video of the incident and listen closely at 0.7 secs to 0.10secs to hear the monkey chants directed at the Ghana star below