ISMA Goncalves says he was driven out of Hearts by racist abuse from his own supporters.
The 26-year-old joined Uzbek outfit Pakhtakor Tashkent last month in a £300,000 deal, ending a year-long stint at Tynecastle.
Goncalves has revealed that his spell in Edinburgh was marred by prejudicial comments made towards him by a minority of Hearts supporters, which were witnessed by his wife and young son.
His family subsequently stopped attending matches and the former St Mirren attacker soon made the decision to accept a transfer away from Hearts.
He said: “There were some people making racist comments to me in the stadium and my family did not feel okay about this. It was a minority, but bad things even from a minority can have a big impact.
“My family should be able to go to the stadium and feel comfortable – it’s not nice when your son, your wife and your brother have to listen to people calling me ‘a f****** black’.
“My brother first told me about this around October, I think. My family came to the stadium another two or three times and these comments were still coming all the time. After that, my wife said, ‘I am not coming to the stadium any more to listen to these types of comments about my husband’.”
Hearts have confirmed they will contact Goncalves to apologise and have vowed to ban any supporter found to be making racist comments or gestures at future matches.
A Hearts spokesperson said: “We would urge supporters who witness any such behaviour to contact the club, be it in person at Tynecastle, via our Supporter Services email address, by phoning us or by texting our incident report line in confidence, which can be found inside the stadium’s concourse.
“The club was unaware that these incidents had occurred, but we will immediately implement some additional pro-active measures to ensure there is a simple process for players and their families to report any such incident.
“The club will be contacting Isma to apologise to him and his family on behalf of the thousands of supporters who share our anger and disappointment that they were subjected to this behaviour.”
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