Carlo Ancelotti revealed that he proposed to Vini Jr, who was sent off at the end of the match, to replace him to protect the athlete and denounced the seriousness of the situation, which provoked a reaction from Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Hiroshima, Japan, where he was participating at the G7 summit.
ADVERTISING
“I spoke to him during the game, the atmosphere was very heavy, very bad, I asked him if he wanted to continue playing. The fact that I think I have to take it off because the environment is racist doesn't sit well with me. I have to remove a player if he doesn't play well, but thinking about removing a player because of racism, that has never happened to me,” said Ancelotti.
What happened today has happened other times, but not like this. It's unacceptable. The Spanish LaLiga has a problem. It's not Vinicius. Vinicius is the victim. There is a very serious problem”, added the Italian coach.
During the match, fans at the Mestalla stadium insulted the Brazilian.
ADVERTISING
Ancelotti declared that he heard shouts of “mono” (“monkey” in Spanish), but a Spanish journalist told the coach during the press conference that the fans were shouting “tonto” (something like “dumb” or “stupid”).
The explanation did not convince the Italian coach. “Why did the referee stop the match? Why did they call him 'stupid'? No. He stopped the match because he opened the racism protocol. The referee stopped the match to open the racism protocol. Talk to the referee. He stopped the game for this.”
In the 25th minute of the second half, Vini Jr pointed at a fan and then the players reported the insults to the referee.
ADVERTISING
In addition to the incident, another incident involving the Brazilian and Hugo Duro resulted in Vinicius being sent off in stoppage time, but the referee did not punish rival Duro.
“It wasn’t the first time, nor the second nor the third. Racism is normal in La Liga. The competition thinks it's normal, the Federation does too and the opponents encourage it. I'm so sorry. The championship that once belonged to Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Cristiano and Messi today belongs to racists”, wrote Vinicius on Twitter.
LaLiga reacted and stated that it “requested all available images to investigate what happened”.
ADVERTISING
“Once the investigation is completed, if any hate crime is detected, LaLiga will take the appropriate legal action,” stated the entity chaired by Javier Tebas.
– “Isolated episode” –
In a statement released after the match, Valencia CF said it “publicly condemns any type of insult, attack or disqualification in football” and regrets “the acts that occurred during the 35th round of LaLiga against Real Madrid”, although the club mentioned a “ isolated episode”
“The club is investigating what happened and will take the most severe measures. Likewise, Valencia CF condemns any offense and also asks for the utmost respect from our fans”, adds the note.
ADVERTISING
“Vinicius is continually disrespected on all fields in Spain”, reported Dani Ceballos after the match.
“If he (Vinicius) had said 'I'm leaving', I would have left with him. It is something that cannot be tolerated”, declared goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois.
Vinicius received several expressions of support.
“It is not possible that, almost in the middle of the 21st century, we have racial prejudice gaining strength in several football stadiums in Europe,” said Lula when expressing solidarity with the attacker.
Vini Jr also received messages of support from Neymar, Frenchman Kylian Mbappé and singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil.
“I’m with you”, wrote Neymar on Instagram. "You are not alone. We are with you and we support you”, wrote Mbappé on the same social network.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino expressed “total solidarity” with the Brazilian striker this Monday.
“All our solidarity with Vinícius. There is no place for racism in football or in society and FIFA supports all the players who have gone through this situation,” Infantino said in a statement.
He recalled the three steps recommended in competitions organized by FIFA in the event of racist insults and expressed the desire that they be “applied in all countries and in all leagues”.
“First, you interrupt the match and announce. Secondly, the players leave the field and the announcer announces that, if the attacks continue, the match will be suspended. The match resumes and, thirdly, if the attacks continue, the match is ended and the three points go to the opponent”, highlighted the FIFA president.
Read also
* The text of this article was partially generated by artificial intelligence tools, state-of-the-art language models that assist in the preparation, review, translation and summarization of texts. Text entries were created by the Curto News and responses from AI tools were used to improve the final content.
It is important to highlight that AI tools are just tools, and the final responsibility for the published content lies with the Curto News. By using these tools responsibly and ethically, our objective is to expand communication possibilities and democratize access to quality information. 🤖
