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Croatia's players will carry an anti-racism banner on to the pitch at the Maksimir Stadium tomorrow in a bid to reduce the risk of England's black players being abused. There will also be announcements asking the fans to behave, with Uefa issuing a warning that Croatia could have points deducted from their Euro 2008 qualifying group if there are serious problems.
Whether Uefa would ever take such action is debatable given their record for handing out relatively paltry fines, but the Football Association will be encouraged to hear the match is being closely monitored. Steve McClaren's players are braced for the worst and they will have mixed views about the statements from the Croatian football federation, whose head of security, Zoran Cvrk, described monkey chants as the fans' way of having a "joke."
"Croatian supporters can be wonderful, loyal supporters but from time to time there are groups who can produce a large scale of problems," said Cvrk. "We hope it won't happen in this match. We want to get the message across that we're part of football against racism. Occasionally, though, it does happen. It happens to Serbian players and there is also a totally unforgivable way of making a joke about players of different races. But it doesn't happen often."
Cvrk tried to defend the Croatian fans who formed a human swastika when the team played Italy in Livorno. "It was a crazy situation. There are plenty of left-wing supporters in Italy and our fans were being provoked. They were being called communists. It was a group of fewer than 150 people. They tried to be funny and make a joke with their bodies. They produced a swastika and that wasn't a pleasant experience for the Croatian football federation or the Croatian government."
Nor for Uefa. "There's no doubt we are paying particular attention to Croatia," said the Uefa spokesman William Gaillard. "They are on a warning because they were sanctioned after Euro 2004 for extremist banners and slogans. They were also sanctioned by Fifa after the game in Italy and some of the Croatia clubs have been sanctioned because of incidents in the Uefa Cup. Our match delegate on Wednesday is very aware this should be closely watched. If there are any problems we can take many different sanctions, ranging from a fine to points being deducted and, in the most extreme cases, the team being removed from the competition."
Cvrk was unwilling to give assurances the match would pass without incident but he said the problems were not as bad as perceived. "In recent years there are many more black players in Croatia, which has helped the supporters understand. It's a much better situation now than before the so-called coloured players came in."
As a joke, it's sorely lacking.
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