Czech journo makes baffling Ondrej Kudela claim after Gareth Bale elbow

Czech journalist Jiri Hosek bizarrely claims Ondrej Kudela would be getting treated differently if he was French or German after being accused of racially abusing Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara.

Slavia Prague and Kudela have maintained innocence after something the player said to Kamara in Slavia’s Europa League win at Ibrox earlier this month.

Wales beat the Czech Republic 1-0 on Tuesday night in World Cup qualifying and during the match in Cardiff, Tottenham’s Gareth Bale forced Kudela off the pitch with an elbow in the second half.

After that incident, Sky Sports’ commentator, via SportBible, said: “I’m sure there will be large sections of the football community that won’t be too upset to see him take a blow to the face.”

Seznam Zpravy journalist Hosek has since hit out at the commentator and suggests that the reason Kudela is being treated so harshly is that he’s Czech.

He wrote: “The atmosphere is so toxic and full of hatred that at this moment we are not sure that someone else is waiting for the [defender].

“This was illustrated on Tuesday night by a shocking sentence from a Sky Sports commentator, who commented on Bale’s intervention, saying that some people in the football environment will probably not be too angry that Koudel was in the face.

“I have an unpleasant feeling that if Kúdela were German or French, these words would not fall and the concentration of disgust and resentment towards the Czech defender on social networks is also significantly lower.”

Boo hoo

Players get elbowed in football all the time, intentionally or not. All players should expect to get roughed up whenever they take to the pitch – but they should never expect to be racially abused.

We’ll keep pointing back to what we saw happen at Ibrox in that last-16 match.

It was a heated match. Kemar Roofe had not long been sent off for an ugly challenge on Slavia goalkeeper Ondrej Kolar and then Kudela covered his mouth, leaned in and said something to Kamara.

The Finland international, as well as team-mate Bongani Zungu, were instantly outraged by what had been said. Neither had spoken to one another, neither had checked their stories out but both of them reacted to what was said.

It’s abysmal what happened and worst of all, Slavia’s attempts to sweep the whole thing under the rug were as abhorrent as it gets.

We’ve heard a lot from Slavia Prague and the Czech press in regards to what happened and what has happened since the Europa League meetings between Rangers and Slavia.

The Czech champions doth protest too much, methinks.