Marko Nikolac, coach of Slovenia side Olimpija Ljubljana has been handed a seven game ban for calling Nigerian forward Blessing Eleke a “black idiot”.
Eleke had said his religious background influenced him in talking the club president Milan Mandaric out of sacking the Serbian.
This prompted Mandaric to forgive Nikolac. The club president had said in a press briefing: “The remarks of our coach were not racially motivated. He just wanted to win the game. We are all focused on qualifying for the championship playoffs and going on to win the league.”
However, the Slovenian FA intervened by banning Nikolac, citing “clear racism” as its reason for acting.
Doyen's Blog recalls that Marko Nikolac, had apologized to Eleke for fear of losing his job after he racially abused him.
Nikolac said his remarks about Eleke were not racist as he only wanted his team to conserve time and try to score a winning goal as they aim to reach the championship playoffs.
Marko Nikolac, coach of Olimpija Ljubljana has been handed a seven game ban for calling Nigerian forward Blessing Eleke a “black idiot”.
He said he was very angry when he saw Eleke ‘over celebrating’ after the Nigerian scored a leveller for Olimpija on Sunday, April 10.
He said: “I wish to apologize to the to everyone – the President, the Sports Director, Blessing Eleke and finally all fans of Olimpija for an inadvertent remark, which when heard again on television later sounded very distasteful and worthy of condemnation.
“My only wish was that after the equaliser on 92 minutes, we should try to get the winning goal. My target is to reach the national championship playoffs and go on to win the championship. I would like to thank all the team for understanding that my remarks were not meant to be racist.”
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