Hercules denounces racist insults to a player from its subsidiary and Torrent denies it

Hercules has denounced this Tuesday, through social networks, that the player of its subsidiary team, Jean-Paul Hdjoli, received racist insults from a Torrent footballer during the match that both teams played this Sunday corresponding to the Third RFEF competition.

“Last weekend the club suffered an unfortunate xenophobic offense in the person of a Hercules B player,” explains the note from the Alicante entity.

“From Hércules CF we firmly condemn this behavior and launch a message against racism in football”, adds the Herculaneum entity, which does not want to make assessments about the incident and refers to the statement issued.

Jean-Paul Hdjoli, a French player who is in his first season with the subsidiary, received insults during the match, as confirmed to Efe by the entity, such as “dirty black” and comments like “I’m going to rape your sister like black slaves” by a rival player.

The footballer informed the referee of what they told him and asked him to intervene, although without success. The reserve team’s coach, Alejandro Esteve, chose to replace Jean-Paul Hdjoli at the request of the player himself, very affected by the comments, in the 65th minute.

At the time of his departure from the field, the Herculaneum footballer was sanctioned with a yellow card, already off the field of play, for kicking a wastebasket in a gesture of rage after hear apelike sounds in the stands, explained sources close to the entity. Hercules demanded that the referee include these incidents in the minutes. EFE.

The official answer of the Torrent

El Torrent has issued an official statement in which it has denied all the events.

Given the news, comments and statements appearing in some media and mainly on social networks, relating to an alleged verbal abuse of racist content that is claimed to have been carried out by one of our players, in a match held on March 6 against the Hercules Club de Fútbol “B”, we make the following official statement:

First of all, We deny the facts that are denounced, neither our player nor our stands uttered racist insults at Jean-Paul Hdjoli, a Hércules CF “B” player, on Sunday morning at the San Gregorio, as the referee’s minutes of the match do not include and as can be seen in the images of the match, which was recorded.

The minutes do include the words of the delegate of the Alicante club and the delegate of Torrent CF, that transferred the numerous damages that the French player had caused once he was replaced by his coach -not at the player’s request, but rather it was the coach himself who decided to take him out of the match-. When leaving the band of San Gregorio once substituted, he threw a plastic chair against the stands, kicked and broke a wastebasket and kicked the locker room tunnel. Already in the dressing room area itself, it hit another bin, a door, a bench and destroyed the AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) installed in the San Gregorio soccer field, of which the referee trio recorded photographs at the request of Torrent CF

In no case did the stands make any racist gesture or sound about the player, His attitude was only protested with whistles when the chair hit the fence that separated the field from the stands.

From Torrent CF we have always condemned any sign of violence on a football pitch, and we will continue to do so. And racism is. We condemn any racist act that takes place on and off the field of play and we deeply regret that not only is the information that is being published not being contrasted, but that it is being given truthfulness, since they are only increasing the hatred that from the The player’s environment is pouring out towards our player and our club in the form of insults and threats on social networks that have been denounced this afternoon by Ángel Cano and Torrent CF at the Torrent National Police station at the request of the legal services of the club.

We also affirm that a humiliating treatment is as unfair if it occurs as it is to attribute that treatment to a person if it is not true, Therefore, the presumption of innocence must govern, valuing in the same way the word of all people and consequently of the players, without prejudging or lynching a person by means of the media, when until now it has not been demonstrated, rather to the contrary, that those attending the match or the referee or the other players will hear such insults being thrown.

For this reason, we therefore urge the media, social networks and the people who make up the sports environment in which we operate, to refrain from attributing such serious conduct to our players because they can provoke in third parties an absolutely unfair animosity.

In addition, the entity reserves the right to take any legal action against false information, insults and threats. We feel vilified, belittled and mistreated, we are the most harmed since our image is being tarnished with false information.

We are Torrent CF, a centenary and plural club, with more than twenty nationalities of all races among the almost one thousand members of the first team and the Taronja school.

No to racism.

No to any kind of violence in football.

The Hercules will have to pay for Jean Paul’s damage

The Single Competition Judge met this Tuesday to resolve various issues, including the controversial issue with Jean Paul. In this way, the body has determined “the obligation on the part of Hércules to compensate the local club with the amount of the damage caused in the sports facilities and that appear in the arbitration record.”