Steven Pienaar was involved in an ugly incident in England at the weekend when he and Everton teammate Arouna Kone were subjected to racial abuse during an FA Cup fixture.
The pair were celebrating their side’s opening goal inside two minutes away at lower league Carlisle United when they were abused by an unknown number of home fans.
The players were clearly seen reacting to the abuse and immediately informed the referee.
The match official spoke to both managers and it was agreed that an announcement would be made over the public address system calling for the abuse to stop. Everton manager Roberto Martinez tried to downplay the incident after the comfortable 3-0 win.
“What happened is when we scored the goal, Arouna Kone and Steven Pienaar were celebrating,” he said. “A very small minority in the back of the stand behind the goal made some racial remarks. As you know, there is no sort of room for that type of behaviour but I must stress it was a very small minority. I want to believe it was just an emotional reaction to the disappointment of conceding a goal. I thought the way the referee handled it and the whole ground handled it, they stopped at that moment.
“It wasn’t an exercise of using the game to racially abuse any of the players. It was handled in the right manner, even though you should never see incidents like that.”
Martinez said the club would assist police in their efforts to identify those involved.
“We will help the police and we will help Carlisle and we will help everyone to make sure that it does not happen again, not just in football but in life. I thought the way we handled it, the referee and the announcement was a real sign of respect and it stopped the wrongdoing.”
