Udinese are going to try and identify the fans that racially abused Mike Maignan and then ban them from the stadium for life, rather than just as a temporary measure.
The general director of Udinese, Franco Collavino, spoke publicly soon after the incident which occurred during AC Milan’s 3-2 win over Udinese on Saturday.
Maignan said that he heard monkey noises from the fans behind the goal which were aimed at him, and when it happened more than once, he took the decision to start walking off of the pitch. The rest of the players then joined him when it became clear what had happened.
As Collavino has explained (via La Gazzetta dello Sport), the club has already started scanning cameras and audio files to try and work out which individuals were the offenders. He said that whilst they expect it to be just two or three individuals, the situation will still be taken very seriously.
“We are prepared to go in search of those responsible, there can only be two or three people. There were no [widespread] chants, which were not perceived by either the referee or the prosecutor’s office,” he said.
“There are one, two, three wretches, and this is enough for it to be a very serious thing. We have already started looking at the images from the stadium cameras, there is also the audio to listen to.
At the Blueenergy Stadium, between inside and outside, there are over 300 cameras, there is a lot of work to do in a very short time.”
He also went on to explain that whilst they could hand out temporary stadium bans, they would like to pursue life orders for those involved if they can be identified.
“A Daspo has a limited duration but the club can decide to exclude a fan from a stadium for a longer period of time. We will work to exclude them from the stadium forever, for life,” he explained.
