Row Z: Chelsea’s strong stance, Siuuu-per Hojlund and where are the celebration police now?

Welcome to Row Z, The Athletic’s weekly column that shines a light on the bonkers side of the game.

From clubs to managers, players to organisations, every Friday we’ll bring you the absurdities, the greed, the contradictions, the preposterousness and the oddities of the game we all love…

Chelsea’s strong stance

Chelsea, March 2025: The club condemns the disgusting racial abuse their player Wesley Fofana was subjected to on social media following the defeat by Arsenal.

Chelsea put out a strong statement chastising the deplorable discrimination.

“Chelsea Football Club is appalled and disgusted by the recent rise in online racial abuse towards our players,” the club said.

“The abuse Wes Fofana has been subjected to following yesterday’s fixture is abhorrent and will not be tolerated.

“Wes and all our players have our full support. We will work with the relevant authorities in identifying the perpetrators and take the strongest possible action.”

Chelsea, July 2024: No strong statement, or indeed any statement whatsoever, after Enzo Fernandez is filmed singing an offensive song about France’s black players, which includes Fofana.

Fofana called it ‘uninhibited racism’. He later accepted an apology from his team-mate and said he ‘did not understand’ what he was singing, with Fernandez making a sizeable donation to an anti-discrimination charity that Chelsea then match-funded. Fernandez also apologised in public with a post on social media: “The song includes highly offensive language and there is absolutely no excuse for these words.”

Oh, and Fernandez was made captain of the team for Chelsea’s first league game of the season a month later. Strongest possible action indeed.

Siuuu-per Hojlund

Picture of the week comes from Denmark versus Portugal on Thursday night.

Rasmus Hojlund, after not finding the net for three months, now can’t stop scoring. He followed up his drought-ending strike against Leicester City last week with the winning goal in a Nations League quarter-final first leg.

He did his best to miss an open goal from six yards, mind, but then wheeled away and did the ‘Siuuu’ celebration while Cristiano Ronaldo glared from a distance.

It was another productive night for Ronaldo in a big Portugal game. The man who scored no goals in 486 minutes at the Euros was given another 95 minutes to impress by the in-no-way subservient Portugal manager Roberto Martinez and responded with two shots off target, 30 touches and an unsuccessful dribble.

Diogo Jota and Joao Felix were options from the bench and that’s exactly where they remained as Ronaldo was given every opportunity to have another shot.

Hojlund insisted he wasn’t mocking Ronaldo with his copycat celebration.

“Scoring against him and Portugal is huge,” Hojlund said. “I went to see him in 2009, where he scored from a free kick, and I’ve been a fan ever since.”

That was probably the last free kick he scored. Anyway, you’ve just gone considerably up in our estimations, Rasmus.

Are the celebration police off duty?

Hojlund has clearly had too much time on his hands to ponder what his next goal celebrations were going to be.

After his Leicester goal, he performed a lovely throat-cutting gesture, believed to be inspired by the Gladiator films.

According to the Daily Mail, no action will be taken over the celebration despite its violent connotations.

That’s absolutely fine by Row Z — if he wants to mimic something he’s seen in a film, so be it. And if Phil Foden wants to fire an imaginary gun into the crowd, whatever, that’s his choice, he’s not advocating violence, it’s just a bit of fun.

However let’s never, ever, ever forget that the line wasn’t crossed by those celebrations, but Iliman Ndiaye was booked for being a seagull.

Wood you believe it?

Also punished, unbelievably, was Chris Wood, who after scoring a hat-trick for New Zealand against Fiji (just to reiterate this is still football, not rugby), was substituted and then took a wander into the stands to sign autographs and take selfies with his adoring fans.

Down in our estimations goes Tahitian referee Norbert Hauata… for booking Wood.

“If that’s the rules, that’s the rules,” Wood lamented after the World Cup qualifier. “Just doing something nice and trying to sign for the fans.”

Can’t do something nice, pal, this is FIFA we’re talking about.

Wood being booked for his actions (Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

SoFi, So Bad

Who’s got World Cup 2026 fever?! OK, it might be a bit early, but you’d imagine the main host country will be buzzing about staging their first World Cup since 1994.

If the USMNT were playing a fairly important competitive match in Los Angeles (population 3.8 million), you’d imagine, just 15 months out from the tournament, plenty of fans would turn up to watch, even if it had been scheduled for 4pm because the main event of Canada versus Mexico was being held in the same SoFi Stadium later that night.

Or…

Social media corner

Celebration fail of the week comes from the Carabao Cup final and Newcastle’s Sean Longstaff…

Banner of the week comes from Italy…

See, Row Z doesn’t want to go all Sean Dyche on you but we’re surely too soft in this country. Imagine England welcoming the visitors to Wembley tonight with a humungous tifo that read ‘ALBANIA S**T’?

It’s been a great week for intense managers.

First up, here’s Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder celebrating their big derby victory over Sheffield Wednesday.

Earlier, Wilder had given the PG version in his post-match press conference: “We’re on 82 points after 38 games, Sheffield Wednesday are on 51, their season’s done.

“Those supporters that had bets with Sheffield Wednesday fans in the summer about who’ll finish higher, you cash in and enjoy your winnings.

“We’re 31 points clear of them. That’s quite big.”

Gattuso’s call for respect

For entertainment purposes at least, Row Z wishes more managers were like Wilder, but we’re not quite sure we want many more Gennaro Gattusos. One might be enough.

Former Milan, Marseille and Valencia manager Gattuso is currently out in Croatia managing Hajduk Split.

After their 3-0 defeat away at Rijeka last weekend, which saw the home team overtake Gattuso’s side at the top of the table, Gattuso launched into his post-match interview by berating pundit Josko Jelicic, basically calling him a bad person.

It almost doesn’t matter what language they’re talking. Just enjoy the beef and wish that Premier League managers did this with Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, Jamie Carragher etc.

And finally, the comment of the week comes from the BBC’s coverage of Arsenal versus Chelsea.

Chelsea might be fourth in the Premier League table, but Enzo Maresca’s style of football isn’t exactly winning many people over…

(Top photo: Getty Images)