I back him 100 per cent: Angry Steven Gerrard issues message to UEFA over alleged racist abuse of Glen Kamara

And Gerrard called on UEFA to take action over the incident and stressed he would support Kamara completely in whatever course of action he wants to take.   

Both sets of players squared up to each other in ugly scenes at the end of an often bad-tempered game the Czech side won 2-0 and had to be separated by Israeli match official Orel Grinfeeld.

Gerrard, whose team were beaten 3-1 on aggregate, went on to field after the final whistle to make his displeasure with Jindřich Trpisovsky’s defender Ondrej Kudela, who had allegedly whispered in Kamara’s ear, known.

And the former Liverpool and England midfielder spent some time remonstrating with Slavia officials on the sidelines long after the game had ended and also attempted to comfort Finnish internationalist Kamara.

“First and foremost it’s important to say that sometimes during your career around football things happen that are more important than the game, that are above football,” he said. “That’s what has happened tonight.

“First, I’ll deal with the football side. We were beaten by the better team over the two legs. Congratulations to Slavia, they deserved it over the two games. In no way, shape or form do we sit here and be bad losers, coming out with excuses.

“I’m really proud of my players considering the journey they’ve been on. They have dealt with a title race as well. I couldn’t be more proud from a football point of view although over the two games we were beaten by the better team.”

Gerrard added: “In terms of the other incident, I have to be very careful what I say. But you build relationships in football. I have a very, very strong relationship with Glen Kamara. Glen Kamara to me is one of my own, like the majority, all in that dressing room.

“I 100 per cent believe what he is saying in terms of the accusation. Other players around him heard it so I will stand toe to toe with Glen Kamara and I’ll deal with this however Glen wants to deal with it.

“I am proud of all my players, tonight showing solidarity and from the top of this club to the bottom we stand with the players. This situation is over to UEFA now. I just hope it doesn’t get brushed under the carpet.

“I feel angry. It’s difficult to describe how I feel now because I know Glen and I trust him 100 per cent. It’s extremely disappointing. There is too much of it happening around football.

“The Slavia player has caused this and he has also caused a situation like this to escalate even further because straight away you get the fans joining in and the racism grows and grows. Something needs to happen quickly. That is above me. But 100 per cent I stand beside Glen Kamara, whatever happens going forward.

“There was a lot of commotion around which we tried to defuse and this will be dealt with by UEFA. UEFA will take this upon them I’m sure they will speak to both players and we will let other people deal with it.

“All I can confirm is that my player tells me he was racially abused. It tried to call Glen over during the game, he didn’t come over. I was going to ask him did he want to leave the pitch and I would have backed him whatever his decision was, but the payers stayed on the pitch. That was their decision and the game came to a conclusion.

“This will be taken out of my hands now and dealt with by UEFA. I just hope with all my heart that people deal with it because that situation was not normal. If I wanted to say something to you on a football pitch why do I need to cover my mouth and go to the ear. The game’s done in terms of the result at the time, we have nine men they are 2-0 up there is absolutely no need for it.”

Gerrard also expressed his disgust that Slavia Prague officials attempted to deny that one of their players had targeted Kamara for racist abuse – and Kemar Roofe had suffered the same sort of treatment on Instagram.

“The disappointing thing for me is there is people trying to defend the opposition player,” he said. “Their people, trying to defend it, trying to defend him, calling us liars. That’s for other people to deal with. All I say now is that I stand by Glen Kamara 100 per cent.”

Asked about the social media slurs which were aimed at Roofe, Gerrard said: “It escalates from the situation. It escalates from that. From a football point of view we have no complaints, we hold our hands up we were beaten by the better team over two legs.

Gerrard and Kemar Roofe

“Kemar deserved the red card, if he goes with his head the situation could have been different. But some things are above football and right now I don’t even feel like talking about football.

“All we can do is hope and keep trying to do everything we can. I have said many times from a football point of view I can’t be more proud of my players.

“Obviously the incident tonight has soured a game between two good teams I don’t think there was much in the game. Obviously they got an important goal which put them in a good position and we did everything we could to try to get into the game.

“We put Kemar on to try and change the situation and force a goal because at that point we needed a goal. The big turning point in terms of the outcome was the red card. And then we obviously get another one late on.

“But there will be a time and a place to talk about this game in detail and a time and a place to analyse the game but right now I can’t get the incident near the end of the game out of my system.”