FIFA is studying the Russian Football Union (RFU)'s response to their bizarre decision of banning Ghana midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong following a recent racial abuse he suffered while his attackers were left unpunished, GHANAsoccernet.com can exclusively reveal.
The world governing has received the RFU's response to the query by FIFA following the global outcry over the decision to slap the Ghanaian with a two-match ban when he was the victim of a vile racist abuse during a Russian league match two weeks ago.
Former Arsenal midfielder Frimpong, now with FC Ufa, was banned for two games after he was sent off for gesturing to Spartak Moscow supporters he says were making monkey noises.
FIFA told Ghana's leading football news website www.ghanasoccernet.com it is studying contents of the response by the RFU before taking a decision after the Ghanaian player was racially abused with monkey chants before he responded to his abusers.
"We can confirm that following our request for information we received a response from RFU,"Â a FIFA spokesperson told Ghana's leading football news website GHANAsoccernet.com on Friday.
"The information provided by RFU will now need to be analysed. Â Therefore, please understand we have no further comment at this stage."
FIFA gave the RFU until Tuesday to provide information on the Emmanuel Frimpong racism case and they have obliged even though details of the letter was not provided by FIFA.
Ghana's Frimpong was sent off playing for FC Ufa against Spartak Moscow on 17 July for a gesture to the crowd after saying he heard monkey chants.
The midfielder was banned for two games but Spartak escaped punishment after the RFU found no evidence of racism.
Frimpong is not contesting his suspension but last week said it was "beyond a joke" for the RFU to deny there had been any racist chanting.
Russia host the 2018 World Cup and have been criticised for their handling of the issue of racism against a backdrop of incidents.
Ivory Coast midfielder Yaya Toure has even gone so far as to suggest black players could boycott the Russia World Cup.
In February, football anti-discrimination group Fare documented more than 200 incidents of racist and discriminatory behaviour linked to Russian football over two seasons.
Fifa sustainability boss Federico Addiechi says the governing body will work with the RFU to tackle the problem ahead of the 2018 World Cup.
United Nations chief of anti-discrimination Yuri Boychenko says Russian authorities are slowly acknowledging racism is a problem in the country.
He added: "First comes recognition, that authorities here should recognise that there is a problem and I believe that the recognition is coming."
Russia's minister for sport Vitaly Mutko - a Fifa executive committee member - said the country's football authorities were working to address the problem.
"We have introduced punitive sanctions for clubs and offenders and they are more harsh now," he said.
"Another measure is a special inspector at the match whose responsibility will be to pay attention to that kind of incident so no incident is left unpunished."