POOR SHOW

Last updated : 19 November 2004 By editor

The fallout from Wednesday night continues.

Gary Neville:

"We've had to cope with racism for years in certain countries. There's nothing we can do about it. We can only try to promote things in a certain way. Around 70,000 people watch most of our games and you can't control what they do. We can only play football. I accept this is a bigger issue but our main job is to play football.

"It's not going to be sorted out by the England football team, it's a problem worldwide. But you don't expect it in Spain. I thought they were actually an ally of ours. I can't understand it, where it comes from I don't know.

"I think it's up to the governing body to take whatever action they feel is necessary, not the England football team. I feel sorry for the Spanish players because they seemed a decent set of lads."

Rio Ferdinand:

“I wasn’t fully aware of it when I was on the pitch until I came off – and then I was looking around in amazement. I thought ‘is this really happening?’ I think the lads are thick-skinned enough to take it. They get booed in the Premier League every week anyway – but when it’s racial it is different.

“In the changing rooms after the game it kept coming back to ‘how is this still going on? Their manager (Aragones) is meant to have said something racist and he was never punished, which maybe gives a signal out to fans that it’s okay,” Ferdinand said.

“I would have had no problem with that at all. It's not the players' decision but if the boss had said 'that's it' I would have been happy to come off. It's a tough call for the manager, especially when you are losing. But I don't think anybody in England or on the England team would have blamed us. The abuse was disgraceful.”’