Charlton Athletic chairman Matt Southall has said he's 'deeply saddened' after reading Jonathan Leko's damning statement on the Kiko Casilla racism-row.

The incident occurred during Charlton's 1-0 win over Leeds United at The Valley back in September. Leko, 20, alleged that Leeds United goalkeeper Kiko Casilla had racially abused him during the game, but only now has the Spaniard been penalised for his actions.

Casilla has subsequently been banned for eight Championship matches, the first being served against Hull City last time out, and has been fined £60,000.

Leko, who has since returned to West Brom from his loan-spell at Charlton having been ruled out for the remainder of the season with an ACL injury, has this week released a statement regarding the hearing, and the lack of support that he claims he's received throughout.

Speaking on Leko's statement, Southall has expressed his gratitude for the ex-Addick forward on Twitter:

The West Brom man claims he had 'minimal contact' from the PFA, and received no support from any of the sport's anti-racism foundations either, including both Kick It Out and Show Racism The Red Card.

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The verdict

This is a very upsetting situation for football fans to witness, and it's hard to imagine how tough it's been on Leko. He's had to deal with this saga for a number of weeks now, and dealing with a long-term injury as well, it's really been a season to forget for him.

Hopefully we can learn from this. There's been a lot of mistakes made throughout the whole scenario, by a number of bodies and individuals, and the same mistakes cannot be made again.