FIFA has fined Spain’s football federation $20,000 (£15,000) and ordered a partial stadium closure for Spain’s next international friendly, after supporters sang a discriminatory chant about Muslims during a game against Egypt on 31 March, BBC Sport reported.
Spain must play that match with 15% of the stadium closed off, mainly in the stands behind the goals. Subject to FIFA approval, the seats may be filled with community or special interest groups, according to BBC Sport.
Spain’s next potential friendly date is in June. If they reach the Nations League finals, the punishment is delayed until an empty date in Euro 2028 qualifying, BBC Sport reported.
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The Night in Barcelona
A group of Spain home fans were heard chanting around the 10th minute and again at the start of the second half, BBC Sport reported. An anti-discrimination message was displayed on the screen at the RCDE Stadium in Barcelona and shown again early in the second half, drawing whistles from some of the crowd. The match ended 0-0.
After the second occurrence of the chant, the stadium announcer issued a warning, according to a Reuters report carried by Al Jazeera.
Spain coach Luis de la Fuente called the chants “intolerable” after the incident and said “violent people use football to carve out a space for themselves”, BBC Sport reported. Spain winger Lamine Yamal, who is Muslim, called those responsible “ignorant and racist” at the time, according to the Al Jazeera report.
The Egyptian Football Association condemned the chants as an unacceptable “repugnant act of racism”, BBC Sport reported, but said the acts of a small group of fans would not affect close relations between the two federations.
The Spanish federation, the RFEF, condemned the anti-Muslim chants following the incident, according to BBC Sport. Spanish police launched an investigation the day after the match, the Reuters report carried by Al Jazeera said.
The Federation’s Case
FIFA opened disciplinary proceedings against the RFEF over “Islamophobic and xenophobic” chants, BBC Sport reported.
The RFEF argued the conduct should be judged under FIFA’s Article 17, which covers political, ideological, religious or offensive messages, rather than Article 15 on discrimination, according to the Al Jazeera report. It argued the word Muslim was “neither insulting nor pejorative”.
The disciplinary committee rejected that. It said Article 15 does not require the explicit use of a slur, and that a term can be discriminatory when used in context as “an insult, taunt, or marker of inferiority”, Al Jazeera reported.
A senior RFEF official told Reuters the chants were picked up by the federation’s monitoring systems and reported at once to match officials, and that security in that part of the stadium was stepped up. The official said the federation had acted immediately and regarded the sanction as particularly severe, arguing that comparable capacity limits had not been applied automatically in more serious cases.
Next Stop, the Court of Arbitration
The RFEF appealed the sanction. A FIFA spokesperson told Reuters, in a report Al Jazeera carried on Friday 16 October, that the appeal had been dismissed the week before.
FIFA has published its written reasons, BBC Sport reported on the same day. In them, the disciplinary committee said the RFEF could not “persuasively maintain both that the chant was entirely harmless and that it warranted activation of anti-discrimination measures”.
The federation is now taking the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, according to Al Jazeera’s Reuters report.
More coverage is in our Football section.
Sources: BBC Sport, “Spain handed partial stadium closure after discriminatory chants v Egypt”, 16 October 2026 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cr86zg3w2lg2o); Al Jazeera, “Spain to appeal to CAS after FIFA penalty for Islamophobic chants”, 16 October 2026 (https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/10/16/spain-to-appeal-to-cas-after-fifa-penalty-for-islamophobic-chants)
