Monaco apologise to LFP over Mohamed Camara controversy | OneFootball

AS Monaco CEO Thiago Scuro has revealed that he has called the LFP to apologise for an incident in Sunday’s game against FC Nantes, which saw Mohamed Camara (24) tape up the anti-homophobia badge on his shirt.

The final gameweek of the Ligue 1 season also coincided with the LFP’s anti-homophobia campaign. It was a campaign that last season caused controversy with players such as Zakaria Aboukhlal and Mostafa Mohamed refusing to take part. In reaction, the LFP toned down the campaign this year. Gone were the rainbow shirts, with players’ names and numbers printed in the colour of the rainbow and in came a badge, featured on the front of the jerseys of all players, of all teams, that “Homophobia football” with a cross through the word homophobia.

However, the campaign was still marked by a controversial moment. Mohamed was absent from FC Nantes’ matchday squad, as he was last year, raising questions. AS Monaco’s Camara did feature on Sunday night, however, not only did he abstain from taking a photo behind the anti-homophobia banner pre-match, as all other players did, but he also taped up the anti-homophobia badge on his jersey, as well as the rainbow logo over the Ligue 1 badge on the sleeve.

“Firstly, we as a club, support the league’s initiative, for sure. It was a personal initiative from Mo Camara. We will have this conversation with Mo internally. Internally, we will discuss this situation. I had the badges on in the game, I support the league’s initiative,” reacted Monaco manager Adi Hütter post-match.

Following calls from French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra for sanctions, both for the player and for the club, Scuro has revealed that he has been in touch with the LFP.

“As an organisation, we support the league. I called the CEO of the LFP, Arnaud Rouger, to apologise yesterday morning,” began Scuro in a roundtable interview with Get French Football News. “Mo has his religious reasons to do what he did. As you can imagine, it is a very sensitive topic to discuss as we have to respect religion. We, as a club, are very sad about this episode. We hope to show this and show that we don’t support this. We will manage it internally. What happened this year will not happen again. This episode should not scratch the club’s reputation. It doesn’t represent who we are, as AS Monaco. We are not afraid of punishment. It could happen but we hope not. It doesn’t feel fair to punish the whole organisation but I respect the opinions,” he added.

The Brazilian, who replaced Paul Mitchell at the Principality club last summer, said that there wasn’t prior awareness of Camara’s intention to tape up the badge. “We had no clarity on this. It’s not that I am checking all the shirts. It doesn’t work like this. Someone probably saw it before but it’s not the focus of attention before jumping into the game. The situation doesn’t represent who we are, as AS Monaco, it’s an individual decision that we are managing,” said Scuro.

>> READ: Full interview with Monaco CEO Thiago Scuro

GFFN | Luke Entwistle