FORMER Croatia international and current president of the Croatian Football Federation (CFF), Davor Suker, has denied that he or any of his teammates was involved in directing racist taunts to members of Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz team prior to the kick-off of the countries’ first World Cup match at France 1998.

Suker was responding to an article published on June 12 in the Jamaica Observer entitled “Ugly memory of France ’98 sticks with Lawrence”, in which former Jamaica goalkeeper Aaron ‘Wild Boy’ Lawrence claimed that a top player from the Croatia team had called the Jamaican players ‘black monkey’ in the tunnel before the players had taken the field. The article had pointed to Suker as the one making the alleged offensive comment, but he has repudiated the claim in a letter to the newspaper.

Below is the full text of Mr Suker’s letter:

“I am extremely disappointed in remarks made by Mr Lawrence because they consist of false accusations of racism before the match between Croatia and Jamaica. I played with many players of different race throughout my career and you can easily check with every one of them that I would never use racist language like Mr Lawrence said, and as a president of CFF I continue to fight against racism. It is a pity that somebody is trying to self-promote by falsely accusing other people of racism. I will always look on that match with great joy because it was a first Croatian win on the World Cup (stage) and it set us on a path to a bronze medal. We respected Jamaica like every other opponent (as), they gave us a great fight and I am sorry that Mr Lawrence is trying to taint memories of that game. But I can honestly say that now I am even more glad that I have scored a goal against him and I wish I would have scored three.”

Editor’s note: Aaron Lawrence did not play in Jamaica’s France 1998 3-1 loss to Croatia as Mr Suker claims. It was in fact captain Warren Barrett who did duty in that encounter as well as the Argentina game. Lawrence’s only appearance was in Jamaica’s 2-1 win over Japan. Suker, with six goals, won the Golden Boot in France.