HNK Rijeka have insisted that they did not racially abuse Manchester City's Seko Fofana during an Under-21 match earlier this week.
Youth team coach Patrick Viera took his players off and abandoned the match at half time following the allegation, which came after the French player was sent off for an off-the-ball incident.
Rijeka's youth coach Ranko Buteka told Croatian news agent Hina: "The Manchester coach, Patrick Vieira, entered the pitch, discussed something with the referee and then, to the utter surprise of the packed stadium, withdrew his team from the pitch. The reasons are known only to him. Perhaps he had expected an easier rival, against whom they could easily dominate and easily score, but this wasn't the case against us.
"We strongly reject unfounded racism allegations mentioned in the statement Manchester City has posted on its website and want to stress that Rijeka itself had six players from Nigeria on the team.
"We also want to point out that HNK Rijeka, in cooperation with FARE [Football Against Racism in Europe], has been supporting the campaign against racism for years and we strongly condemn every such incident. We are very unpleasantly surprised by the serious and unfounded allegations, which we entirely reject."
City have said that they are pursuing the allegations with the Croatian Football Association.
Sian Cowper
