UEFA is assessing possible breaches of its rules by Spain’s Alvaro Morata and Rodri during the Euro 2024 victory celebrations in Germany, the organization said on Friday.
During the celebration, Morata and Rodri sang “Gibraltar is Spanish” at events along with the crowd that welcomed them to Madrid, where they celebrated their fourth European title after beating England 2-1 in the final in Berlin.
The Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) lodged a formal complaint with UEFA on Tuesday and called the Spanish team’s celebrations “highly provocative”, “offensive” and “unacceptable”, adding that “there is no place in football for such behaviour.”
The Gibraltar government expressed “disappointment” at the celebrations and called the chants “outdated comments about Gibraltar” and the gesture an “unnecessary mixture of sporting success with discriminatory political statements”.
UEFA recognised Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the southern coast of Spain, as a full member in May 2013 following a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) against the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) and the Spanish government.