Ibiza have confirmed they have sacked a group of ballboys who racially abused Sporting Gijon B goalkeeper Christian Joel.
The shot-stopper handed his shirt to the ballboys after his side went down to a 1-0 defeat this weekend, before they then insulted him in a video.
Ruben Gonzalez scored the only goal of the game for Ibiza during the clash on Sunday, but it was events after the match which made the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
“They sent me a video calling me an immigrant with the top that I gave them,” Joel wrote on his social media, as cited by Marca.
A subsequent statement from Ibiza confirmed: “Ibiza are a sporting entity formed by people from very different backgrounds, languages and beliefs.
“Here, we work so that football is a point of meeting and a place of coexistence in which, evidently, this type of behaviour has to be persecuted, reported and eliminated from its roots.
“From Ibiza we have already contacted Christian and Sporting to apologize for these unfortunate events.”
Ibiza are currently sitting in second place in their Segunda B group – the regionalised third tier of Spanish football, which is split into four divisions of 20 sides each – although they remain five points adrift of league leaders Atletico Baleares.
The defeat took Sporting Gijon B down to 15th spot, just one place above the drop zone.
