Barcelona star Lionel Messi has been reprimanded by coach Josep Guardiola after being caught spitting at Malaga winger Duda at the weekend.

Messi had a running battle with Duda during the course of the match and late on in the game the pair collided and ended up on the floor. As Messi recovered he was caught, by television cameras, appearing to spit at the Portuguese who had his back turned.

The Argentine forward has now come under intense media focus after the incident, and his previous squeaky clean image is likely to be tarnished after the confrontation.

New Barcelona boss Guardiola has told players anything not of a good nature will not be tolerated in his time at the club, and told press; "It is not good when things like this happen, we will try to avoid these happening again."

However, the incident involving Messi and Duda was not the only talking point of the match between Barcelona and Malaga.

Samuel Eto’o was subjected to monkey chants from the La Rosaleda crowd before being booed off by the crowd when he was substituted in the second half. Surprisingly it is not the first time Eto’o has had to deal with racist abuse, as the player was the focus of racist chants in 2006 against Real Zaragoza.

Spain has a long running problem with racist abuse from a small percentage of fans, and although the Spanish FA is likely to hold an investigation into both incidents from the weekend, it may be time that FIFA or UEFA stepped in over the racist abuse in Spain.