by Erica » Wed Mar 01, 2006 5:58 pm
This is what happened last Monday on a T.V. program from Mallorca. In the end, Etoo's friend says that what he has told on T.V. is a joke, but my doubt is:
Is it really a joke, or was Etoo taking advantage of his black skin when playing against Zaragoza?
I leave you here a quick translation of the interview:
Eto'o's indiscreet friend.
A close friend of Eto’o said on a TV program that the player had pretended to feel infuriated following instructions given by the club. Then he said he was just kidding.
Source: JORGE OTO (01/03/2006)
The story goes back to last Monday night, around 11 PM. Tolo Salom, a man from the motorcar business and close friend of Samuel Eto'o, appears on a sports discussion program in Channel 4 (a private TV channel in the Balearic Islands). At some point, Salom says that he had been watching the football match between Mallorca and Real Madrid at the VIP box of the Son Moix stadium, and there his friend had admitted that everything that had happened in the match between Barcelona and Real Zaragoza in La Romareda stadium had been prepared beforehand. According to Salom, it was months ago that Barcelona had given Eto'o instructions to take any opportunity to leave the pitch claiming that he had suffered racist behaviour from the public. It had to be in a decisive match, when the Barcelona team was having trouble, as it happened last Saturday in La Romareda against Real Zaragoza.
This Salom continued his story in front of the astonished faces of all people present at the TV set and said that Barcelona plan is rooted in the Protocol against Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance, a law proposed by the highest sports authority in Spain, the Consejo Superior de Deportes, and approved by all football clubs on the 18th of March. This protocol gives the referee the power to stop and even suspend a match where a player suffers racist behaviour. Salom emphasised that this fact led Futbol Club Barcelona to talk with Eto'o about the possibility that the striker provoked the suspension of a match, only under extraordinary circumstances, concerning a key match, when the "azulgrana" team were in trouble. According to Eto'o's indiscreet friend, that was Saturday's match. But the Camerounese player didn't go all the way. The referee stopped the match, but didn't suspend it, so the victory wasn't secured for Barcelona at a later meeting of the Disciplinary Committee. So, again according to Salom, Eto'o went a bit further and pretended to be ready to leave the pitch, but the referee Esquinas Torres played his part to prevent it. Besides, Eto'o did know that, if he leaved the pitch, he could be punished and his team wouldn't gain the three points. For this to happen, the match should be suspended by the referee, not by him. But this didn't happen, so the Camerounese player decided to stay in the pitch, satisfied because he thought that the interval could be enough to give his team an advantage, as it actually happened. The referee whistled penalty, Celades was sent off, and Ronaldinho scored, and the match was over. Eto'o, according to Salom, had had it his own way and he didn't try to stop the match again, not even when the insulting and shouting went on.
The end of the story left all people present with their mouths open and someone asked Salom: “Do you really know what you're saying?”. Then, Salom -apparently a real joker, changed his face, became serious and said: “Come on, I was just kidding!”, which obviously made the presenter go mad. Salom doesn't answer the phone since then.