England are playing Spain in Madrid for the first time in 12 years following a shameful night in 2004 where black players were subjected to sickening racist abuse

Thomas Tuchel will remind his England players of UEFA’s anti-racism rules ahead of their Nations League showdown with Spain in Madrid.

It is the first time England will have played a fixture in Madrid since 2004 when the Three Lions' black players were subjected to shocking racist abuse in Real Madrid’s Bernabeu Stadium.

England will be hoping there is no repeat when they play in Atletico Madrid’s Metropolitano Stadium on Sunday. But Tuchel confirmed that he will talk to the squad ahead of the fixtures and remind them of the protocols in place.

England boss Tuchel said: “I still think the protocol is in place and it's important that the players know about the protocol. And then yes, we will give our answers if stuff like this happens. The best answers are on the pitch. I think we had the same discussion before the Serbia game.”

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UEFA’s three step protocol starts with the referee pausing the match for a PA announcement to order the behaviour to stop. The second step is to suspend the game and both sets of players leave the pitch while the final step is to abandon the game.

In November 2004, England players Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips were subjected to repeated baiting and monkey chants by large elements of the 60,000 crowd.

Then Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero both condemned the racist abuse. But the Spanish FA was only fined only £44,750 for the racist chanting.

England played in Spain in 2009 but the FA refused to play the game in Madrid because of the previous issues. It was played in Seville and England have subsequently played in Seville and Alicante with no issues.

But Spain have had high profile issues with Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior subjected to over 20 incidents of racism in Spain over the years.

Tuchel added: “I think it's unacceptable. In any stadium, not even in stadiums, we will never accept racism. We will never be racist towards anyone.

“That's just not who we are, and that's why I expect, of course, full support from the Spanish crowd for the Spanish team. We will not expect anything. And I think the referee in the games and the officials know about that.”

Tuchel did reference having similar discussions with the players amid fears of potential racism when they played Serbia in Belgrade in 2025 and the game passed without incident.