Tottenham Hotspur win fight to have Son Heung-min racist abuser banned
Tottenham Hotspur have vowed to continue rooting out racist spectators after successfully appealing for tougher sanctions for a Crystal Palace fan who abused Son Heung-min.
Spurs felt the 60 hours of unpaid work and £1,384 fine handed to Robert Garland in August after he admitted a racially aggravated public order offence towards South Korea forward Son at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last season was insufficient.
So the club and Metropolitan Police appealed to the UK Football Policing Unit for additional punishment and Garland, 44, from Croydon, has now received a three-year banning order from football on top of his initial punishment.
“We thank the police for their cooperation on the matter,” said Tottenham. “We should like to reiterate that the club does not tolerate discrimination of any kind and will always seek for the strongest possible action to be taken against those found responsible.”
Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Kevin Christie said the case “shows that hate crime at football will not be tolerated”.
He added: “Garland’s actions were rightly condemned on social media and we call on all fans to carry on calling out any form of discriminatory behaviour against players or fans to the police or stewards so we can take cases like this to court.”
Garland’s racist abuse consisted of shouting and gentures towards Son during the Premier League match in May, which Spurs won 1-0.
Last season saw a 32 per cent increase in the number of football banning orders issued, with the total of 682 representing the highest figure since 2010-11.
Hate crime incidents were reported in relation to 370 matches – 12 per cent. Of these, 248 involved hate crime incidents related to race.