Pierre Webo, the Istanbul Basaksehir‘s assistant coach who was allegedly abused racially by Romanian referee, Sebastian Coltescu on December 8, said the past few days after the incident has been the most difficult of his career.
Recall that on December 8, 2020, Istanbul Basaksehir visited Parc des Princes to play against Paris Saint Germain in the last group match of the UEFA Champions League campaign. Unfortunately, the match was disrupted by the protest of Pierre Webo who was agitating that the Romanian referee who served as the match’s fourth official called him “black” in Romanian.
The agitation attracted the attention of the center-referee in the 14th minute of the match and had to halt the match. He went to Istanbul Basaksehir’s bench to show the assistant coach a red card to bring the situation under control.
PSG v Basaksehir assistant referee allegedly said the "n-word" to a staff of Basaksehir pic.twitter.com/TIDp5vlyk1
— noobfcb (@noob_fcb) December 8, 2020
But that was not enough to bring an end to the agitation in the stadium. Pierre Webo’s agitation was convincing enough for Istanbul Basaksehir’s players that they had to walk off the field into the locker room. PSG also followed their visitors in solidarity with Pierre Webo.
UEFA decided to postpone the match to December 9 and changed the whole officials of the match. Before the rescheduled match kicked off, both PSG and Istanbul Basaksehir’s players stepped out wearing T-shirts supporting the fight against racism. They took a knee at the center of the field in protest against racism.
𝗡𝗢 𝗧𝗢 𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗜𝗦𝗠. 𝗡𝗢𝗡 𝗔𝗨 𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗜𝗦𝗠𝗘 ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻#PSGIBFK pic.twitter.com/fc8y75kroV
— Paris Saint-Germain (@PSG_English) December 9, 2020
The rescheduled match ended 5-1 in favor of PSG and ended Istanbul Basaksehir’s journey in the Champions League for this season. Fortunately for Pierre Webo, UEFA suspended the red card he received initially and dropped Sebastian Coltescu temporary until the investigation into the incident is over.
“In my opinion, 8 December, there is a before and after. It will be remembered”, Pierre Webo told BBC sport.
“We showed that we will do that. It’s not the ref who is going to stop it, it’s the players.
“As I said, we are now going to have the day before 8 December and the day after.”
“I don’t want people to focus on me because of this, it will be a shame if I’m remembered for this”, the assistant coach added. “I’m ashamed of it to be truthful.
“These two or three days have been the most difficult of my career.”
Who is Pierre Webo?
Pierre Webo is a 38-year-old assistant coach of Turkish side Istanbul Basaksehir. Before he started working at the Turkish club, the retired Cameroonian striker played for Osasuna, Mallorca and Leganés before he joined other clubs in Uruguay and Turkey.
The Cameroonian striker scored over 132 club career goals in 449 games. He also scored 19 goals for Cameroon national team between 2003 and 20014.
During his time with the Cameroon national team, he made a total of 58 appearances. Most of the appearances were in the Africa Cup of Nations. He has also appeared in two different FIFA World Cups with Cameroon.
