Lee Bowyer unhappy with timescale involved in Leeds United goalkeeper Kiko Casilla's racism case

Leeds United goalkeeper Casilla was accused of making a racist remark to former Charlton loanee Jonathan Leko during the 1-0 defeat at The Valley on September 28.

Casilla vehemently denied the allegation but five months later the Spaniard was found guilty of racist abuse following an FA disciplinary process and suspended for eight matches with immediate effect.

The Whites keeper was also fined £60,000 and told to attend face-to-face education after a breach of FA Rule E3(2) was found proven by an independent Regulatory Commission.

Charlton also released a statement in which they said Leko and Addicks striker Macauley Bonne, a witness in the case against Casilla, had been abused on social media since the verdict had been reached.

"It’s been difficult, the most important thing now is that it’s been dealt with and we can move on," said Charlton boss and former Whites midfield star Bowyer.

"In an ideal world for us, and I guess that Leeds would say the same, it would have been resolved quicker.

"I don’t think it’s been fair on both clubs and for all the players involved for it to have gone on for as long as it did.

"Especially for Jonathan Leko and for Macauley Bonne. It’s taken too long.

"To have something like that hovering over you, as a young player, it’s difficult. It’s not a nice thing to have to carry.

"I have to say that us as a football club have been there supporting him since day one.

"As a club we don’t agree with racism. We don’t want it in football and this club does a lot of work around the community with all different aspects.

"We know we’ve done the right thing by Jonathan and we’ve supported him throughout the whole process.

"You can see he wasn't himself, because he's a bubbly lad, he's a young lad, very confident, and he was a bit quiet for a while after.

"But then us as a group, we got him through that, and then he started to become himself again.

"As soon as the verdict came out, I rang him, just to make sure he was ok.

"Now that it's over, he just said he's glad it's over and he can move on."

Leko - who was on loan at the Addicks at the time of the incident - released a statement earlier this week through parent club West Bromwich Albion, criticising the handling of the case and the time it took to reach a conclusion.

"By bringing the incident to the referee’s attention immediately, I was only doing what I have been educated to do throughout my career," said Leko in part of his statement.

"But I found the hearing, at which I was made to feel I had done something wrong, extremely stressful.

“It made me question whether I would be prepared to go through it all again were I on the receiving end of similar abuse in the future. I certainly would think twice about how to advise another player placed in the same situation."

Charlton's executive chairman Matt Southall tweeted: "Reading Jonathan Leko’s statement has left me deeply saddened. To think a black player would consider not reporting racist abuse aimed at them is shocking.

"Football has a duty of care to protect players who have been abused in this way. But if the process is too demeaning, lengthy or damaging, what does that say about how far we’ve truly come?

"To hear Jonathan so angry and distraught in his statement makes me wonder whether football as a sport is merely paying lip service to the fight against racism."