The Premier League’s ‘Kick Racism Out of Football’ campaign issues punishments such as relatively meager fines and an “FA investigation”, but it seems that Japan’s J-League takes the issue much more seriously, as two teams were forced to play in an empty stadium following a racist banner being hung inside Saitama Stadium 2002 by fans.
The banner, which can be seen below, featured the words ‘JAPANESE ONLY’, and led to the Urawa Red Diamonds team being forced to play in an empty stadium. The banner was held up in the stadium a month ago, but the punishment was only made this past weekend, as Urawa played against Shimizu S-Pulse in the J-League Division One.
Images of the match were posted to 2ch, Japan’s largest online forum.
Watch footage of the eerily quiet match below.
(Via Kotaku)
