The South Korean footballer Ki Sung-yeung has sparked a row with Japan amid accusations that he directed a racist gesture at Japanese fans during the countries' Asian Cup semi-final this week. Replays of the match, which Japan won on penalties, show Ki pulling a monkey face after opening the scoring against Japan, South Korea's fiercest football rival. The gesture is viewed as insulting towards the Japanese, the Korean peninsula's colonial rulers for 35 years until the end of the second world war.
The Celtic forward later said he had intended to highlight racism in the Scottish game after he and another South Korean footballer were subjected to monkey chants during a Scottish Premier League match this season. But his explanation has failed to convince the Japanese: TV news shows broadcast endless repeats of the goal celebration and feelings were running high online.
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Ged Grebby, chief executive of the Show Racism the Red Card campaign, questioned Ki's explanation. "It doesn't ring true to me that that's what it was about." Ki appears to have been referring to Celtic's 3-0 win over St Johnstone last October. After the game the Perth club said it was launching an investigation into claims that Celtic players had been subjected to "racist noises".
Ki's compatriot and Celtic teammate, Cha Du-ri, said: "When Ki had the ball two supporters jumped up and started making monkey noises in unison. I played for eight years in Germany and I have never seen anything like that." A spokesman for the Korea Football Association supported Ki's version of events. "The treatment he got from the Scottish league, especially in the away games ... that is something he wanted to highlight. Even though they call him a monkey because he's Asian, he wanted to show how strong they are in Asia. That was the main intention."
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