Marca: Racists must not make us blush again

The paper's editorial (right), which had a front page saying "the racists must not make us blush again" alongside a digitally-enhanced image of a 'black' Zinedine Zidane and 'white' Samuel Eto'o, read: "We have to admit our errors over what happened but we will not take lessons in morality from English football given its history of hooliganism. But having said that we cannot allow there to be another racist incident of this nature."

In the immediate aftermath of Spain's victory, Marca accused the FA of exaggerating the scale of the problem. One of their columnists, Miguel Angel Mendez, wrote: "What the English FA have done is make a noise out of nothing."

Though the paper has changed stance, Marca radio station, somewhat bizarrely, suggested that the English outcry was the product of a conspiracy theory designed to destabilise Madrid's Olympic bid, which, along with London's, was presented to the International Olympic Committee this week.

But, Mali international Lamine Sissoko, who plays for Valencia, indicated that racial chanting is not confined to only Madrid but is a widespread problem in Spanish football. "When I play away from home I am always insulted," said Sissoko.

"I honestly don't believe that Spain is a racist country, I have not had problems outside the stadiums but inside it's a big problem.

"What happens is people start singing racist songs and everyone joins in and they don't think about the effect on the players. We have got to do something about it whether its fines or ground closures, I don't know, but something has to be done."

The Spanish Football Federation announced it will be carrying out an investigation into the events, though that process is likely to be delayed because elections are ongoing for the position of president.