Zenit probe Carlos football fan banana incident

SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) – Zenit Saint Petersburg vowed on Wednesday to punish the "unethical" football fan who reportedly showed a banana to former Brazilian fullback and current Anzhi Makhachkala star Roberto Carlos.

A photograph published on Russian websites shows a fan holding out an open banana to Carlos as the players lined up for the Russian national anthem before the start of Monday's Zenit-Anzhi match in Saint Petersburg.
The Russian Football Union said it was investigating the incident and threatened to force the club to play one home match behind closed doors if the allegations were proven to be true.
Zenit is renowned in Russia for its hard-core groups of supporters and the team vowed on Wednesday to tackle racial problems at its fan base.
The 2010 season champions said in a statement that "the person in the stands behaved in an unethical manner in relation to FC Anzhi player Roberto Carlos" and promised to prevent a repeat of such incidents.
"We once again remind fans that racial intolerance is inadmissible," the Zenit statement said.
Football fan clubs played a major role in the race riots that rocked Moscow and other major cities following December's deadly attack on a Spartak Moscow supporter by young men from Russia's mostly Muslim North Caucasus region.
The 37-year-old Carlos became the biggest name to join Russian football when he unexpectedly signed a lucrative two-and-a-half year deal with Anzhi last month.
His arrival closely followed that of Dutch football great Ruud Gullit, who joined another North Caucasus side, Terek Grozny, who play in nearby Chechnya.
Zenit is famous in Russian football for fans who traditionally watch matches bare-chested in the winter season and has been forced to deal with a number of other racial attacks against foreign players.
Several members of the French side Marseilles complained of being pelted with bananas during a UEFA Cup match in March 2008 and an Italian player who was thinking of transferring to Zenit was met with a derogatory banner in 2009.
Carlos was warmly received on his arrival to Russia's former imperial capital and some of the club's most prominent supporters expressed outrage at the latest banana episode.
"We would like to find this person and have a little talk with him," leading Zenit fan club member Ruslan Druyma wrote on the zenitzone.ru website.
"People like this shock me," fan Alexei Drozdov wrote on another site. "It would only be fair if the stadium was disqualified as a result."