A Romanian referee has been suspended for the season after making 'inappropriate' comments about a black coach at a Champions League game, UEFA ruled on Monday.
PSG and Istanbul Basaksehir refused to continue playing on December 8 because players believed fourth official Sebastian Coltescu racially insulted the Turkish club's assistant coach, Pierre Webo.
A UEFA investigation led to Coltescu facing the lesser charge of 'inappropriate behavior' for using the Romanian word for black, 'negru,' to allegedly identify Webo as 'the black one'.
Coltescu is banned 'from carrying out any referee's function until the end of the 2020/21 season,' UEFA said its disciplinary committee decided.
He must also attend a UEFA-approved educational course.
'In the international context, correct use of language is essential to avoid situations such as those that occurred in the above-mentioned match,' UEFA said.
The ban will apply to domestic games in Romania because Coltescu is no longer on the FIFA-managed list of officials approved for international games.
Romania's football federation decided before the game in Paris not to propose Coltescu for 2021, and the PSG-Basaksehir tie was his last on international duty.
The game was completed 24 hours later with a different set of match officials brought in from the Netherlands.
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Racism has been around forever and it’s going to take a long time for some of the people to unbrainwash themselves from hating somebody just because of what colour they may or may not be. It’s going to take time. But I do think this is a little bit too far. They could’ve just asked him to be a little bit more appropriate and left it at that how some players talk to officials is ridiculous. in England last week there was even a ref who went head-to-head with a player to fight him now and i bet that he doesn’t get banned from earning a living. You just have to be so careful what you say in public nowAnd that doesn’t matter what country are you come from or what colour you are all gender you are we all have to watch what we say because FreeSpeech is no longer a thing.