Police investigate alleged racist incident during Luton win at Sheffield United

26 December 2023 , 19:05

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Luton Town's Carlton Morris speaks to referee Sam Allison to report something that was said from the stands (Image: PA)

Luton Town striker Carlton Morris spoke to the police about an alleged racial comment made at Bramall Lane.

Morris, 28, initially informed the fourth official about an alleged comment from the crowd during injury-time of his side’s 3-2 Premier League win at Bramall Lane. Referee Sam Allison - who became the first black man to referee a top-flight game for 15 years - then spoke to both managers. South Yorkshire Police are investigating.

Luton boss Rob Edwards confirmed: “It was an alleged racial comment. The police are dealing with that now. They’ve spoken to Carlton and got his take on it so there’s no more comment on it now.”

Asked how the player was, Edwards added: “Yes, I think he’s alright. “He seemed, at the time, really angry but he seems fine now.”

Morris said: "I heard something from the crowd and the Premier League have done well in educating us players on the protocol and what to do. I went and reported it to the official straight away and they take it from there.

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"It’s a long fight obviously and it’s something I’ve experienced before.

"You get messages and it's still in the game, but we are working hard together to stomp it out. Of course it still hurts but it’s important to get these things reported so that things keep moving in the right direction."

Blades manager Chris Wilder said: "There was a comment made that the referee came over to speak to me and Rob from a racial point of view, which is not great if found to be the case. It was from the crowd towards one of their players.”

Morris had come off the bench in the 71st minute with his side 2-1 down. But he made two crosses which, bizarrely, forced two own goals to massively boost Luton’s hopes of survival. That left Wilder fuming with his own side, insisting the Blades had been their own worst enemies.

Wilder blasted: “We chucked it away. Don’t take that as a dig against the opponents. There will be a lot of talk about our character, getting back into it and all that. But it’s nothing to do with that. It’s to do with our defence and attitude to defending. It cost us on Friday night (against Aston Villa) and it did again today.

“They are really poor goals. You can say it’s unlucky (deflections) but it isn’t as the organisation is poor.

“They've not had to do anything to get back in the game. We handed it to them. The goals are terrible from our point of view.”

David Craven