Chelsea officially report racist abuse of Hudson-Odoi by Dynamo Kiev fans to UEFA

Thursday night in Kiev was almost perfect. Olivier Giroud picked up a hat-trick, with goals from Marcos Alonso and Callum Hudson-Odoi rounding up Chelsea’s 5-0 win at the Olympic Stadium over Dynamo Kiev.

That day has now been marred however as it turns out that Callum Hudson-Odoi suffered racial abuse from Dynamo Kiev fans, in the latest display of such abhorrent behavior in a football stadium.

As per the report from the Evening Standard, a section of the home fans directed monkey chants at Hudson-Odoi in the second half. The 18-year-old immediately pointed this out to Chelsea captain César Azpilicueta, who then spoke to referee Tobias Stieler at the end of the match. Hudson-Odoi also reported the incident to Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck and director David Barnard, both of whom were with the team in Ukraine. They in turn reported the matter instantly to UEFA, who are now investigating the matter, apparently.

Earlier today, Chelsea officially confirmed that we’ve made a complaint to UEFA as well, though the official statement does not specify the player who was subjected to this abuse, nor does it confirm that UEFA have actually started an investigation yet.

Dynamo Kiev were punished for racial abuse in 2015 and had to play a game in a partially closed stadium as a result. If determined to be repeat offenders, their minimum punishment would be a full stadium closure.

Quite frankly, that’s still would be far from enough as any sort of effective deterrent or solution to this problem — and that’s assuming that UEFA don’t actually just drop the charges like they did in Batshuayi’s, Rudiger’s, and even Chelsea’s own case, just to name a few.