Hull City Fined £30,000 for Homophobic Chanting Ahead of Chelsea Match
Hull City will head to Stamford Bridge this weekend under a cloud of their own making.
The club has been fined £30,000 after discriminatory chanting scarred their 4-0 FA Cup defeat to Chelsea at the MKM Stadium in February, and officials are now pleading with supporters not to repeat the abuse when the sides meet again in the Premier League on Saturday.
The punishment follows an FA charge that Hull failed to ensure their spectators did not use “improper, offensive, abusive, indecent or insulting” language with reference, explicit or implied, to sexual orientation. The club accepted the charge, and the fine was confirmed on Friday.
The chanting during that cup tie was so persistent that announcements over the PA system repeatedly told fans to stop, while messages flashed up on big screens inside the ground. Three people were arrested on the day for allegedly engaging in homophobic chanting.
Hull have since banned three supporters for “a minimum of three years” in response to the incident, as the club tries to draw a hard line under behaviour that one fan group labelled “a stain on our game”.
In a strongly worded statement, the club said it “condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the offensive and inappropriate language used by the supporters responsible”, stressing that the chant “is recognised as a homophobic slur and its use may constitute a hate crime”.
The warning is no longer theoretical. The club made clear that anyone using the chant risks arrest and criminal charges.
So attention turns to Saturday, and a return meeting with Chelsea that now carries an edge far beyond the league table.
“Ahead of Saturday’s trip to Stamford Bridge, the club reminds all supporters that discrimination of any kind is wholly unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” Hull said.
The message is blunt. The fine is real. The bans are already in place.
What happens in the away end at Stamford Bridge will say plenty about whether the lessons have truly been learned.
