European: FIFA demand explanation for racial taunts

FIFA have demanded an explanation from the Spanish football federation for the abuse aimed at England's black players and called for "the scourge of racism" to be eradicated from the game.

Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips were both targeted during last night's friendly in Madrid, which followed considerable racist abuse during the England Under-21 game on Tuesday. Under FIFA's disciplinary code Spain could now be forced to play their next World Cup qualifier against San Marino on February 9 behind closed doors.

What is a disgrace aswell is the The majority of the Spanish press have chosen to turn a blind eye to the racist abuse dished out to England players during the friendly in Madrid on Wednesday night. The country's leading publications opted to concentrate instead on Spain's fine performance in the 1-0 win over Sven-Goran Eriksson's side at the Bernabeu.

The build-up to the game had been dominated by the topic of racism following Spain boss Luis Aragones' ill-judged comments to Jose Antonio Reyes about his Arsenal team-mate Thierry Henry last month. There were also accusations of racist chanting during the under-21 fixture between the sides on Tuesday night.

yer. it was terrible and to be honest. i was suprised. the amount of coloured people in spain and blacks playing there is huge. do the blacks at the clubs suffer racism there?