The FA have cleared Giuseppe Bellusci of racially abusing Cameron Jerome in the game against Norwich City at Carrow Road in October.
The FA announced on February 6th that Bellusci had been found not guilty of the charge, and today they have released their written report, to give their reasons for this conclusion in more detail.
It was always going to come down to one person’s word against another, and Bellusci claimed that he had yelled "ti faccio un’occhio nero, pezzo di merda”, an Italian phrase which translates as "I will give you a black eye you piece of s**t.”
That’s obviously not very nice, and there’s not much point in talking to Jerome in Italian when his understanding of that language is limited, but Bellusci was shouting in the heat of the moment after Jerome had just elbowed him in the head.
It seems that Jerome misheard and thought that Bellusci had used the word "negro”, but the word he picked up on was "nero”, the Italian word for black. Bellusci was also alleged to have made an ‘aggravate breach’, i.e. using a racist term more than once.
Bellusci’s case was helped by the fact that he gave this version of events immediately after the game when he hadn’t heard the detail of charges against him, so it wasn’t a story he’d concocted to fit in with the evidence. The three man commission said "Mr Bellusci has been consistent throughout in his evidence as to the words used by him and that he said the word ‘nero’ only once in a particular context. He maintained that case during his evidence before the commission.”
"Mr Jerome’s evidence has been inconsistent in certain material respects which inevitably have an adverse effect on the reliability of his evidence as a whole. Accordingly, where their recollections differ, the commission prefers the consistent evidence of Mr Bellusci to that of Mr Jerome, specifically in relation to the word that forms the basis of the alleged aggravated breach. On the balance of probabilities we find that Mr Bellusci used the word ‘nero’ once, in the context that he claims, and that Mr Jerome misheard or misinterpreted what was said as ‘negro’.”
The ‘Kick It Out’ organisation got involved at the time Bellusci was originally charged, and the latest reference to the case on their website dates back to Feb 6th. "Kick It Out notes the decision taken by the Independent Regulatory Commission to find the case brought against Giuseppe Bellusci as not proven. We now await the publication of the full written reasons behind the decision, and will be looking to speak to Cameron Jerome to ascertain how he wishes to proceed, and what support we can offer him.”
It will be interesting to see what they’ve got to say once they’ve updated their website to take account of on today’s written judgement, as the outcome doesn’t seem to offer Jerome any scope for ‘wishing to proceed’ any further. It’s a shame they chose to come down on one side before they heard the evidence and offered support to only one party. Who is going to offer Bellusci support for dealing with false accusations of racism?