Slavia chief shares what Bellerin and Leno told Ondrej Kolar after Kemar Roofe challenge

Tue 13 April 2021 9:14, UK

Hector Bellerin and Bernd Leno told Slavia Prague goalkeeper he does not have to be afraid after suffering a head injury due to Kemar Roofe’s bad challenge last month.

Rangers were reduced to 10 men in a heated Europa League round of 16 clash with Roofe was sent off for a high tackle on Kolar.

Slavia’s goalkeeper played against Arsenal last week at the Emirates but opted to wear protective headgear.

Rangers

Slavia chairman Jaroslav Tvrdik has since revealed on Twitter what Gunners duo Bellerin and Leno said to Kolar about his injury in the first leg of the Europa League quarter-finals.

Speaking on Twitter on Sunday night, Tvrdik said: “Today, Ondrej Kolar told me a situation from which I am incredibly excited [about],”

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“I get the virus back in English football.

“In fair play, the captain [Bellerin] and goalkeeper [Leno] of Arsenal came to him before the match and assured him that he did not have to be scared after his injury.

“This is the real value of football.”

Ondrej Kolar mi dnes vypravel situaci, ze ktere jsem neskutecne nadsen a unesen. Vraci mi viru v anglicky fotbal. Ve Fair Play. Kapitan a brankar Arsenalu k nemu spolecne pred zapasem prisli a ujistili ho, ze se nemusi po svem zraneni niceho bat. Tohle je skutecna hodnota fotbalu
— Jaroslav Tvrdik (@JaroslavTvrdik) April 11, 2021

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Roofe’s challenge on Kolar was an ugly one and he deserved to be sent off. We wish Kolar the best in his recovery and hope that one day he is able to continue playing without a mask and protective headwear.

Roofe was correctly sent off and will be banned for UEFA matches next season. Do we have any complaints about that? Absolutely not.

But that wasn’t the ugliest thing to happen in Rangers’ Europa League defeat to Slavia Prague with Glen Kamara allegedly racially abused by Ondrej Kudela.

We’re still waiting to hear UEFA’s verdict on those allegations while a police investigation also rumbles on in the background.

Kudela has managed to avoid Police Scotland so far with he and Slavia protesting innocence despite not speaking to the authorities in the UK about the alleged racist incident.

Kolar’s face will hopefully heal.

But will the scars of being racially abused on a football heal the same way?

In other Rangers news, Frank McAvennie was embroiled in a spat with a Gers fan on Twitter after he discussed Eddie Howe and Celtic.