The Guardian:
The England Under-21 team's 2-0 victory over Germany in a European qualification play-off in Leverkusen last night was overshadowed by allegations from two England players that their opponents had racially abused them.
Micah Richards and Anton Ferdinand said they were called "monkeys" by Germany players during the game, which England won 2-0 with two late goals from the substitute Theo Walcott to qualify 3-0 on aggregate for next year's finals.
"Two of our players have complained of racial abuse from Germany players," a Football Association spokesman said. "We have raised that with the Uefa delegate after the game and will be formally communicating with Uefa in the next couple of days. Racism is an issue which we take extremely seriously and we will follow this up."
More from The Guardian: [we assume Bilic is referring to the fans and does not expect it off his players]
Slaven Bilic, the Croatia manager, acknowledged last night that England's black players could be targeted by racists inside the Maksimir stadium tonight. "I can't see how we can stop it," he said. "How can you stop someone if he wants to shout something bad? What can you do, cut out his tongue? You can react after the incident but how do you prevent it happening? We can't have more security people than fans, so what then?"
Uefa has warned Croatia to expect punishment if there is any repeat of the fans' behaviour in Italy two months ago when Croatian fans formed a human swastika in the stands when their team played a friendly in Livorno.
"It's very difficult for us because we are a friendly, peace-loving nation," Bilic added. "We have a black player in our national team and, to use one example, Dinamo Zagreb have five of them. This is not a racist nation and you should not judge us because of the actions of one, 10 or 100 people. Even those guys who are going to do it are not racist. They don't know why they are doing it. They don't understand. They do it just to do it, to show rebellion."
Bilic, whose players will carry an anti-racism banner on to the pitch, was also asked about Uefa's threat to impose sanctions on the Croatian football federation. "That makes it a serious problem," he said. "Again, though, I repeat that we are not a racist nation. Croatia is a nation for tourists. We like foreigners and we have many working, living and studying here. There are always isolated incidents but it happens in Italy, Spain and Germany and many other places, too. It is not just our problem."