Chelsea fans guilty of racist violence in Paris metro

PARIS (AA)- Four fans of Chelsea's English football club were handed on Tuesday suspended prison sentences - six months up to a year - over aggravated racist violence against a French black man in the Parisian subway two years ago.

The incident took place on February 2015 ahead of Chelsea playing Paris St Germain in a Champions League match at the Parc des Princes in Paris.

A video, recorded by metro passenger and British expatriate Paul Nolan, showed the four men harassing and preventing a black passenger, Souleymane Sylla, from boarding a carriage at the Richelieu-Drouot station.

Joshua Parsons, 22, and James Fairbairn, 25, present in the court, denied the attack to be of racial nature. Richard Barklie, a 52-year-old former policeman, and William Simpson, 27, were tried in absentia.

The footage shows the group of men blocking Sylla and forcibly pushing him twice back onto the platform as they chanted: "We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it."

The Paris court also ordered the English Premier League soccer team fans to pay the victim a €10,000 ($10,400) in compensation.

Parsons, Fairbairn and Barklie have already been banned from football stadiums in Britain.