nytimes.com - an exhibition match between one of Italy’s leading soccer teams and a lower division club was abandoned last week after a black player responded to racist chanting from fans by kicking a ball into the stands and walking off the field in Busto Arsizio, outside Milan.

Video of the incident, which took place in the small stadium of Pro Patria, a club in one of Italy’s lower leagues, showed Kevin-Prince Boateng, a Ghanaian-German midfielder for the visitors, A.C. Milan, stopping play and launching the ball in the direction of fans of the home team who were chanting like monkeys. He then pulled off his shirt and walked to the locker room, followed by his teammates.



Fans in the same part of the stadium had directed monkey chants at another Ghanaian player, Sulley Muntari, just minutes earlier, another YouTube clip showed.

The Pro Patria players said later that they had tried and failed to convince about a dozen fans to stop the racist abuse, The Associated Press reported. “When we tried to reason with them and went under the stands, they didn’t even consider it,” Devis Nossa, a Pro Patria defender said. “They certainly weren’t our usual fans.” Read more