Zenit St Petersburg manager Dick Advocaat insists there will be no racist behavior from the Russian supporters in tomorrow's UEFA Cup final against Rangers at the City of Manchester Stadium.
Zenit's fans were accused of abusing Marseille's black players earlier in the competition and Advocaat, who was manager of the Ibrox club between 1998 and 2001, was quoted as saying he could not sign black players for the St Petersburg club due to racism among his supporters.
UK Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe claimed a zero-tolerance approach to the final would mean any racial abuse from any of the 9,000 Zenit fans towards Rangers' black players such as Jean-Claude Darcheville and Amdy Faye could see them end up in prison, and Advocaat assured Sutcliffe that he had nothing to worry about from the Russian supporters.
Reminded that he had allegedly said that he could not sign black players, the former Holland manager retorted: "I didn't say that!
"There will be no problem at all.
"It has become an issue and I don't know why. It is not an issue at Zenit and there are black players in Russia.
"He (Sutcliffe) must have other concerns other than football.
"This about a football match, not about colour."
As the questions persisted on the subject, Advocaat lost his cool momentarily, saying: "I have already answered questions on that. Let's just speak about the football."
Advocaat played down the numerical advantage the Rangers fans will have over their Zenit counterparts.
An estimated 100,000 Rangers supporters will travel to Manchester for the game with over 25,000 expected to be in the stadium at kick-off.
The Dutchman said: "All the Rangers fans will not be in the stadium.
"We have 150 million people back in Russia supporting us - including the president."
The Zenit boss tried to play down the fact that his side, who hammered Bayern Munich 5-1 on aggregate in the semi-final while Rangers scraped through on a penalty shoot-out against Fiorentina, are favorites in what will be their first European final.
"The build-up has been about Zenit being the favourites and I like that - I hope they are right," he said.
"But Rangers have reached the UEFA Cup final and the Scottish Cup final, they have won the League Cup and will hopefully win the SPL, so they must be a balanced side and they deserve respect in Scotland.
"We expect a good game with Zenit winning - I hope."
The former PSV manager joked that media pressure led to penalty practice in training.
He said: "We practised penalties to satisfy the media.
"But I don't believe you can practise penalties.
"If you take them in training you will score but it is not the same as being under pressure in front of a big crowd, that is a different environment."
Advocaat, who declared there were no injury worries among his squad, welcomed back Andrei Arshavin from a ban although striker Pavel Pogrebnyak is suspended.
"All respect to Pavel but I have to talk about the players who are available," said the Zenit manager.
"Arshavin is a quality player of exceptional talent and hopefully he can show that tomorrow night."
Banned Pogrebnyak added: "It doesn't happen that often that players get enough yellow cards to miss the final but Zenit can win without me.
"I don't think I can highlight any one of the Rangers players, the whole team is dangerous."
