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Death Threats against Reading's Players

Reading's football players, Stephen Hunt and Ibrahima Sonko received several letters that contained death threats.

According to the Reading Chronicle newspaper, one of the letters was saying: "We are going to kill you for what you did to our players."

The two soccer players were involved in the incident in which Chelsea's goalkeeper Petr Cech and Carlo Cudicini were seriously injured and needed hospitalization. Petr Cehc fractured his skull after a brutal collision with Stephen Hunt at the beginning of the confrontation between Chelsea and Reading which took place on October 14, at Madejski Stadium. Carlo Cudicini was injured at the end of last month's game after a duel with Ibrahima Sonko.

The letters received by Reading's player came at the club's training ground and are believed to come from a True Blue. Although the first letter was seen as a joke, the players and the club's official became concerned when further threats were mailed. Police is currently investigating the case, but no arrests were made so far.

"We wanted to keep it quiet, and didn't make an issue of it. We went through the proper channels and hoped it would die a death. To regurgitate it now is of no benefit to anybody. I don't think it's for public consumption. It's something different for the media to report but it serves no purpose to anybody else," stated Steve Coppell, Reading's manager.

Chelsea announced through its spokesperson that the club disagrees with the death threats and said that they are willing to cooperate with the police in order to solve this case.

"There is nothing to suggest these threats came from genuine Chelsea fans. Naturally, we condemn any threats of this nature and we will assist the police fully if - and we stress if - there is any evidence linking theses threats to any of our supporters," said a spokesperson for Chelsea.