The Croatian Supreme Court has ordered the former chief of the HNS, the national football federation, to publicly apologize for his homophobia.

Vlatko Markovic, 75, said to a journalist asking him if he had ever met a gay footballer: ‘No, fortunately football is only played by healthy people.

‘As long as I am president, I won’t permit any gay footballer.’

Now a tribunal has banned Markovic from any further discriminatory comments and ruled he must pay to publish both his apology and the court’s ruling in local newspapers.