Tottenham’s investigation into alleged abuse of Chelsea star Antonio Rudiger has been ended after “no evidence” was found to corroborate or contradict the allegation. An investigation was held after the defender claimed to have been racially abused during the recent Premier League match, which ended in a 2-0 Blues win.
The referee for the match last month, Anthony Taylor, did stop the game after being alerted to the alleged abuse.
A public announcement was made, informing the crowd that “racist behaviour from spectators is interfering with the game”.
That announcement was made on two further occasions in line with Premier League protocols for dealing with these type of incidents.
However a statement from Tottenham has confirmed the investigation is over with no evidence found to either support or deny the allegations from Rudiger.
Tottenham’s statement read: “The club and the Metropolitan Police have now exhausted all avenues of investigation following the reported incident at our home fixture against Chelsea on 22 December.
“We carried out extensive reviews of CCTV images and footage, working with professional lip readers.
“All materials and reports have now also been reviewed by the police who have carried out their own investigation.
“The police have notified us today that, having reviewed and investigated, they have closed the crime report as they can find no evidence to support the allegation of racial abuse.
“We fully support Antonio Rudiger with the action that he took – however there is no evidence to corroborate or contradict the allegation and as such neither ourselves nor the police are in a position to take any further action.
“We are fiercely proud of our anti-racism work and our zero tolerance of any form of discrimination.
“This is one reason why we have attributed so much time and resource to investigating this matter.
“Had we identified anyone guilty of this we were intent on issuing them with a lifetime ban from our stadium as they would have no place among our proud, diverse fan base.
“If any new information comes to light, this will be fully investigated.”