Rodriguez rejects ‘racist’ tag after Neymar accusation

MARSEILLE defender Alvaro Gonzalez has defended himself after he was accused of being a racist by Paris Saint-Germain superstar Neymar.

The two players were at the centre of a big ruckus at the end of a very bad-tempered Ligue 1 match in Paris, which Marseille won 1-0 to hand the champions their second straight defeat of the new season.

Neymar, the world’s most expensive player, was one of five players sent off by the referee for their involvement in the fight, but he insisted he had no regret for his part in the fisticuffs.

Neymar tweeted after the game that he should indeed have been more aggressive, wishing that he had hit Gonzalez in the face.

He then added: “It’s easy for VAR to capture my aggression. Now I want to see it capture the footage of the racist calling me a monkey son of a b****. That’s what I want to see!

“I do tricks and I get punished. A tap on the head and I get sent off. What about them?”

Gonzalez however stridently denied Neymar’s accusation on Twitter, citing his ‘’clean career” and claiming that he believes there is “no place for racism”.

In a reply to Gonzalez’s tweet, Neymar wrote: “You’re not man enough to own up to your mistake, losing is part of the sport. Insulting and bringing racism into our lives isn’t.”