- Hundreds of people reportedly targeted black members of Dutch squad
- Team had been training in a public session ahead of Euro 2012 kickoff
- Poland and Ukraine co-hosting tournament amid claims of racism among its fans
- European politicians boycotting games in Ukraine over human rights concerns
(CNN) -- The captain of the Dutch national team says his players were subjected to racial abuse at a training session in the Polish city of Krakow this week, just days before the Euro 2012 football tournament was due to begin in Poland and Ukraine.
Several hundred people reportedly targeted black members of the squad with "monkey chants" during an open session Wednesday at the Stadion Miejski, the home of Wisla Krakow.
"It is a real disgrace especially after getting back from Auschwitz [the Dutch squad had visited the concentration camp on Wednesday] that you are confronted with this," Netherlands skipper Mark Van Bommel told a press conference late Thursday.
"We will take it up with UEFA and if it happens at a match we will talk to the referee and ask him to take us off the field."
Euro 2012 hosts hit back at racism accusations
Platini: Officials to act against racism 
'It's Not Black & White' 
Football pioneer on racist abuse 
Long road to the Euro 2012 cup When questioned over the incident by Dutch journalists who claimed they did not hear the abuse, Van Bommel replied: "You need to open your ears. If you did hear it, and don't want to hear it, that is even worse," according to ESPN.
The Netherlands are due to hold a news conference at 1715 GMT in Poland today followed by another training session in front of fans, according to UEFA's official website.
"UEFA has now been made aware that there were some isolated incidents of racist chanting that occurred at the open training session of the Dutch team in Krakow. UEFA has not yet received any formal complaint from the KNVB (Dutch football association)," read a UEFA statement.
"Should such behavior happen at further training sessions, UEFA would evaluate the operational measures to be taken to protect the players.
Blog: Racism overshadows buildup to Euro 2012
"UEFA has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discriminatory behavior and has given the power to referees to stop matches in case of any repeated racist behavior."
The buildup to the football showpiece, which kicks off in Warsaw on Friday, has been marred by a host of reports highlighting incidents of racial violence in the Eastern European nations.
The families of two of England's black players, Arsenal's Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain and Theo Walcott, will not be traveling to Ukraine and Poland, while Italy and Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli says he will walk off the pitch if he is targeted by racists.
The England team is scheduled to train in front of 3,500 fans at the same stadium in Krakow on Friday.
UEFA president Michel Platini says players must not take matters into their own hands, and that any player that walks off the pitch will be cautioned.
Referees will deal with racists
"It is a referee's job to stop the match and he is to do so if there are any problems of this kind. I count on the fans from Western and Eastern Europe to come to participate in a great football feast. If I am here as a UEFA chairman and you all are here it is because we want this to be a football feast, not a problem," he told reporters Thursday.
Porto's fine after its fans made monkey chants at Manchester City's Mario Balotelli and Yaya Toure was less than the English club's punishment for being late on the field in another match. 
European football's ruling body UEFA has run a "Unite Against Racism" campaign in recent years. 
Manchester City took part in the campaign in 2009 when its players and mascots wore Unite Against Racism t-shirts for a home match against Polish club Lech Poznan. 
UEFA's fight against racism 
In the 1920s, Jack Leslie was denied the chance to represent England, the country of his birth, due to his Jamaican parentage. A forward at Plymouth Argyle, he was the only black player in England at the time. 
Bermuda-born Clyde Best, pictured here in 1972, became the first black player to establish himself in the English top flight with London club West Ham United. 
Best is seen here alongside West Ham legend Bobby Moore (center right) in the 1970s. Moore captained his country to World Cup glory when the competition was held in England in 1966. 
Laurie Cunningham achieved fame as one of the "Three Degrees" at West Bromwich Albion, being part of a trio of black players also including Brendon Batson and Cyrille Regis. Cunningham became the first black player to represent England at any level when he played for the under-21 team in a friendly against Scotland in 1977. His talent earned him a big-money move to Spanish giants Real Madrid in 1979. 
Viv Anderson won the English First Division and played a part in Nottingham Forest's two European Cup triumphs durng a glittering playing career. He is arguably most famous for becoming the first black player to represent the senior England team against Czechoslovakia at Wembley in 1978. 
Anderson was one of just two black players in England's 1986 World Cup squad, alongside Jamaica-born winger John Barnes. In contrast, the 23-man England squad which traveled to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa contained eight black players. 
Cunningham and Anderson were brought into the England fold by Best's former West Ham boss Ron Greenwood, who managed the national team between 1977 and 1982. Cunningham tragically died in a car crash in Madrid at the age of 33, while Anderson ended his playing career in 1995. 
After spending seven years at West Bromwich Albion, England international Regis played for several other clubs in the midlands area of England. In 1984, he joined Coventry City before spending two years with Aston Villa. The powerful striker had a season with Wolverhampton Wanderers and eventually retired in 1996. 
After spells at Arsenal and Cambridge United, Batson spent the majority of his career at West Brom. The Grenada-born defender was there between 1978 and 1982 before injury cut short his career. He later became an administrator with England's Professional Footballers' Association. 
Midfielder Paul Ince built on the legacy of players like Cunningham and Anderson in 1993, when he became the first black player to captain England in a 2-0 friendly defeat against the U.S. In a career where he played for Manchester United, Liverpool and Inter Milan, he collected two league titles and a European Cup Winners' Cup medal. 
The battle for black players to gain international recognition in England may have been a long one, but further north in Scotland a black footballer was paving the way over 100 years ago. Andrew Watson became the first black international footballer when he made his debut for Scotland in 1881, captaining his country to a thumping 6-1 victory against England. Black football pioneers in England 
Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was handed an eight-match ban by the English Football Association for racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra in a match in October 2011. Suarez refused to shake Evra's hand during the customary pre-match ritual ahead of the teams' clash on February 12 this year. The Uruguayan has since apologized for his snub of the France defender. 
Chelsea captain John Terry will face trial in July for alleged racist abuse of Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a Premier League match on October 23. Terry, who was stripped of the England captaincy, denies the charges. 
A fan was banned from attending all football matches for three years after directing racist abuse at Liverpool defender Glen Johnson during a match on January 3. Andrew Dale, 36, was also fined £400 ($628). 
Police are investigating alleged racist abuse by a fan of third division Oldham Athletic's Tom Adeyemi during a FA Cup tie with Liverpool on January 6. 
Manchester City defender Micah Richards closed his Twitter account in February after receiving sustained abuse from other users. "I did enjoy Twitter and the banter with the fans, but I didn't like the abuse you get on it," he said. "I thought it was just for the best for myself because it can affect your confidence if people are saying things about you. I just thought it was best to come off and concentrate fully on football." 
Manchester City lodged an official complaint with European football's governing body UEFA last week after Italy striker Mario Balotelli complained of racist chanting during a Europa League match against Porto. 
Bugaria's football association was fined €40,000 ($53,000) in November 2011 after England complained about racist abuse of winger Ashley Young during an international match in Sofia. 
Brazilian World Cup winner Roberto Carlos walked off the pitch while playing for Russian team Anzhi Makhachkala against Krylya Sovetov in June 2011, after having a banana thrown towards him in the closing stages of the match. 
Samuel Eto'o, one of Africa's greatest players, tried to walk off the pitch in protest after being racially abused while playing for Barcelona against Real Zaragoza in Spain in 2006. His teammates and the referee persuaded him to stay on. 
The Malaysian FA apologized to Chelsea in Julyn 2011, when Israeli midfielder Yossi Benayoun was subject to racial slurs during a pre-season game in the country. 
In 2008, German midfielder Torsten Ziegner was banned five matches for racially abusing Nigerian opponent Kingsley Onuegbu during a lower league match. 
Racism incidents in football A recent documentary from the BBC featured right-wing supporters from both Poland and Ukraine displaying racist and anti-Semitic attitudes. The "Panorama" episode broadcast footage filmed at matches in both countries that purported to show fans displaying Nazi salutes in the stands and aiming monkey chants at black players. This prompted former England footballer Sol Campbell to warn fans not to travel to either country.
However, officials from the co-hosts hit out at the program. Marcin Bosacki, a Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman, told CNN it was "cheap journalism," while Volodymyr Khandogiy, Ukraine's ambassador to Britain, said it was "unbalanced and biased reporting about the situation in Ukraine."
But Piara Power, executive director of the Football Against Racism in Europe organization, said there was still plenty of work to be done in both countries.
"I think we know the situation in domestic football in both Poland and Ukraine and I'm afraid the documentary hit the nail on the head -- it's a very bad situation," he said.
"Nevertheless there is some good work going at grass roots level to make sure that Euro 2012 inside stadiums does not resemble the sort of scenes we saw in the documentary."
Aside from allegations of racism, the choice of Poland and Ukraine as hosts of UEFA's European international football competition -- an event which UEFA says will see 1.4 million fans travel to the region and a further 150 million television viewers tune in worldwide -- has drawn criticism from lawmakers of many EU nations, with some refusing to attend the tournament.
Concerns have arisen over the treatment of former Ukrainian prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who was jailed for seven years in October 2011 for abuse of office.
Tymoshenko, who was a leading figure in the 2004 Orange Revolution and had been on a 20-day hunger strike until last week, argues she has been victim of mistreatment and politically-motivated imprisonment driven by current president Viktor Yanukovych.
Dutch skipper Mark Van Bommel
The Ukrainian prime minister, Mykola Azarov, denied the claims in an interview with CNN on Thursday.
The situation prompted the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to announce they would be effectively boycotting the event: "No ministers will be attending group games at Euro 2012.
"We are keeping attendance at later stages of the tournament under review in the light of Ministers' busy schedules ahead of the Olympics and widespread concerns about selective justice and the rule of law in Ukraine," their statement read.
Foreign Secretary William Hague went further in an interview with the BBC, saying the UK government did not want its backing of the England football team to be interpreted as "giving political support to some things which have been happening in Ukraine which we don't agree with."
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs told CNN the government will be meeting later Friday with the prime minister to discuss attendance by the nation's lawmakers at the tournament, while a German government spokesman confirmed that chancellor Angela Merkel would not be attending any of the first-round matches due to her time schedule.
Austria's Council of Ministers decided on May 2 to boycott all games held in Ukraine as a sign of solidarity with Tymoshenko.
