Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior says Spanish league ‘now belongs to racists’ after enduring more on-field abuse

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
From the outside looking in, Valencia's appeal feels like an awful move. It's difficult to get any message other than "We defend our fans' right to be racist!" out of it.
It’s a terrible look. I am guessing that the basis would be “how was what happened at the Mestalla worse than what happened at the Metropolitano earlier this season?” It’s a poor question but they would have a point. The reality is RFEF should have punished the Frente and Atleti back then and didn’t, especially given the history of that group of ultras. It is an attempt by an owner unpopular with the fans to get the ultras on his side in an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of way.

I will agree and disagree with @rodderick on the punishment. The 45k is a wrist slap and thoroughly meaningless, but the five game closure of the stands is a lot more than I was expecting. It both ensures that people who rely on games get paid and punishes people in a meaningful way. There will be ultras who haven’t missed a game in decades not in attendance, and at least some of them will get the point. I’ve been to Mestalla a few times, and the various ultras- groups who run across the political spectrum- are absolutely in charge of things like this. As @SocrManiac mentioned, a complete closure of the stadium would have an unfair impact on employees and I would add that a point deduction that leads to relegation (or lack of Europe or whatever) would have the same cumulative impact on club employees and the surrounding community that relies on game day crowds. This seems like a happy medium, and if it happens again, the the punishment for the ultras will likely increase, perhaps to a year.
 

rodderick

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 24, 2009
12,751
Belo Horizonte - Brazil
It’s a terrible look. I am guessing that the basis would be “how was what happened at the Mestalla worse than what happened at the Metropolitano earlier this season?” It’s a poor question but they would have a point. The reality is RFEF should have punished the Frente and Atleti back then and didn’t, especially given the history of that group of ultras. It is an attempt by an owner unpopular with the fans to get the ultras on his side in an “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of way.

I will agree and disagree with @rodderick on the punishment. The 45k is a wrist slap and thoroughly meaningless, but the five game closure of the stands is a lot more than I was expecting. It both ensures that people who rely on games get paid and punishes people in a meaningful way. There will be ultras who haven’t missed a game in decades not in attendance, and at least some of them will get the point. I’ve been to Mestalla a few times, and the various ultras- groups who run across the political spectrum- are absolutely in charge of things like this. As @SocrManiac mentioned, a complete closure of the stadium would have an unfair impact on employees and I would add that a point deduction that leads to relegation (or lack of Europe or whatever) would have the same cumulative impact on club employees and the surrounding community that relies on game day crowds. This seems like a happy medium, and if it happens again, the the punishment for the ultras will likely increase, perhaps to a year.
The idea that only fans should be directly punished and not the club is what leads to this permissive culture. Fans understand one language and one language only: how do my actions affect the team. They know they won't be arrested for racist chants if thousands are taking part in them. In Brazil people only stopped routinely throwing shit on the pitch when CBF started implementing a policy of making it so teams were punished by stadium closure and had to play with zero attendance for X number of home games. Then people started self policing in the stands and while the issue didn't disappear, it's become a whole lot more manageable. Yeah, keep saying you'll throw racists out of the stadium, bar specific individuals from entering games and prosecute them; fans know it's meaningless bluster and nothing will be done. Closing off a section of the stands for five games is laughable retribution for literal THOUSANDS chanting monkey at a black player. Laughable.
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
Just trying to piece this together:
Sevilla supporters groups are proposing boycotting the game or going late to protest the reinstatement of Vini which to them is clearly an act of “hooligan entrapment” where RFEF with the aide of Florentino Perez will manufacture racist abuse against Vini, resulting in lifetime bans that will impact their ability to go to/impact the Europa League final. There seems to be assumed knowledge here about Perez that presumably the reader would understand, but is that the correct reading of this conspiracy theory… errr statement.

The way I’m reading between the lines is that these ultras know that there are many in their midst who will be abusing Vini racially and that this is their way of ensuring that this does not happen knowing full well that they will be staring Lifetime bans and stand closures in the face. So I’m looking at this as somewhat positive thing, that possible punishment is getting these groups to think differently. Or at least I’m choosing to believe that to fit my own narrative.
 

Marciano490

Urological Expert
SoSH Member
Nov 4, 2007
62,312
Ancelotti refuses to talk about football, defends Vinicius, insists that the game should have been stopped, says that La Liga has a problem since this event of racism is not a one-off event but a recurrence, urges the La Liga to take action but expresses his doubts that anything will happen given the lack of action whenever it has happened at other stadiums, replies that Vinicius is hurt and sad but adds that it is more like a sadness rather than anger, responds to the interviewer when she asks what about Vinicius's insults to fans by saying that it is normal that Vinicius taunted back given the racism directed to him.
Also says Vinícius was called a monkey. At the end, the interview asks him what he thinks should happen; he replies it’s not his role to say, but it’s a very serious problem that’s occurred often in different stadiums and needs to stop.
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
Unfortunately this is a common refrain in Spain, and it was an official in the referee’s association who really jump started this when he said as much prior to the Atletico game earlier this season. Vini is the “instigator” because of the way he plays and the fact that he dances after he scores.

Also says Vinícius was called a monkey. At the end, the interview asks him what he thinks should happen; he replies it’s not his role to say, but it’s a very serious problem that’s occurred often in different stadiums and needs to stop.
We’ve been noting this with Vini Jr all season in the La Liga thread. It seemed like the meltdown at the Metropolitano was even worse than what happened at the Mestalla but didn’t get the coverage because he didn’t really respond. I don’t doubt he’s dealt with comments and abuse beforehand. Nico Williams was abused online after he missed a few decent chances in a game. Going back over the years, the Dani Alves banana incident is pretty infamous, and I believe that predates his time at Barcelona. I remember criticizing La Liga’s tone deafness following the Diakaby incident a few seasons ago with Juan Cala. We didn’t get any La Liga games on TV back in the Galácticos days but Roberto Carlos posted a video from times he was racially abused. Again, I’m sure this issue goes back further in time. For the players who seem to be the most common targets, they seem to be flashier players deemed to be “showing up” opponents. Non-white immigration to Spain is a more recent phenomenon so the targets are foreigners are often the targets, with the exception of Williams who was born in the Basque region to parents from Ghana (the Williams family trek to Spain is an amazing story). This has been an ongoing problem stemming from Spanish culture, or more properly the various cultures within Spain, and I’m glad that it’s getting called out. My only question is what has taken so long for this outrage to be expressed. I think La Liga and RFEF were caught a little surprised by the response, and that Valencia are going to contend that other clubs were just as negligent, other supporters groups even worse, yet went unpunished. Anyways I hope that this helps push Spain along when it comes to combating racism.
 

reggiecleveland

sublime
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Mar 5, 2004
27,957
Saskatoon Canada
I'm always impressed when these personalities can speak multiple languages so fluently. Like, how many languages do you need to speak to manage at a major club? At least 2-3 right?

More importantly, Spain deserves a lot of derision for how they handle these matters. This type of abuse has happened consistently for years and really nothing ever changes. It's some shameful shit.
I am an ESL teacher. Being completely unilingual is limited to the Americas (north and South), British, Russians, Chinese, (Basically, if you haven't been interested in world domination in the last 150 years your country probably has multiple languages) and a few other places. But in most places, people are at least able to converse in another language.
 

joe dokes

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 18, 2005
30,242
Question from the relatively uninformed. Is there any real possibility that this causes a significant number of players (or a number of significant players) to avoid La Liga altogether?
 

Zososoxfan

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 30, 2009
9,209
South of North
I am an ESL teacher. Being completely unilingual is limited to the Americas (north and South), British, Russians, Chinese, (Basically, if you haven't been interested in world domination in the last 150 years your country probably has multiple languages) and a few other places. But in most places, people are at least able to converse in another language.
Sure, I have family in Argentina and most kids there grow up learning ESL. It's somewhat common I imagine for a grown adult to learn a language for a job (e.g., Pep learning German for his stint at Bayern), but for someone like Carlo I wonder if he can speak English (Chelsea, Everton), and maybe French (PSG) and German (Bayern), in addition to Italian (native) and Spanish? Moreover, he could've done all of that as an adult. What about young players like Enzo Fernandez or Rafael Leao? Enzo grew up in Argentina (Spanish), then moved to Benfica (Portuguese), and now plays in the EPL (England). Do you think he speaks the latter 2? If not, how does he communicate with Frank? Or is it just expected from both players and managers that you learn the language of the country in which the league sits?

This is somewhat glib on my part--if you have a staff that speaks English, Spanish, and maybe one of French/German/Portuguese/Italian, you've covered 90% of the languages spoken by high level players (N.B. I recognize this could mean that a player may not speak any of those languages as a primary language, but they likely can speak one of them as a second language). It's still something that American sports don't have to deal with to nearly the same extent. Sure, MLB managers need to speak English and Spanish or have someone on staff who can, but that doesn't approach Man City for example. Pep probably needs to communicate at least in part in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch/German. At PSG, it's French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian etc.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,620
I am an ESL teacher. Being completely unilingual is limited to the Americas (north and South), British, Russians, Chinese, (Basically, if you haven't been interested in world domination in the last 150 years your country probably has multiple languages) and a few other places. But in most places, people are at least able to converse in another language.
This is true in my experience. It’s also difficult to try to immerse yourself as an English speaker in Europe because when you try the native speakers just answer you in English. Makes it easy as a traveler but harder to pick up the language.
 

Zososoxfan

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 30, 2009
9,209
South of North
Question from the relatively uninformed. Is there any real possibility that this causes a significant number of players (or a number of significant players) to avoid La Liga altogether?
I'd be very curious to know how black players view their experience across high level football across Europe. I do think that Spain and Italy have a worse reputation than England, Germany, or Holland, but that's just a reputation. And even having said that, I think it was Ozil who said that when he played well for the German NT he was loved, but the moment he had a bad stretch he was subjected to anti-immigrant/anti-Turkish abuse. The French NT said the same thing after the WC Final last year. Sadly, you can find anecdotal evidence of racism and xenophobia across Europe without looking too hard.

Rudiger and Sterling called out the EPL within the last 5 years.

Onyewu said he was assaulted in Belgium for being black, and also verbally abused by other players.

The French NT said they had awful shit said to them after losing the 2022 WC final. Including Mbappe, Coman, and Tchoua.

In addition to Ozil's very public statements about German racism, Jude Bellingham has said that he's been racially abused and Jens Lehmann was fired by Hertha for a racist text message he sent 2 years ago.

The list of black players racially abused in Italy is long. Lukaku and Balotelli have both been outspoken about it.

Maradona was famously abused for being a "wild South American" with a lack of control and discipline. This stereotype is probably a big reason why I'm so defensive of the Albiceleste NT if I'm being honest.

In sum, I have no real idea how to answer your question. What I will add is that we need to recognize there are a plethora of other hugely important factors at play here. For starters, players that have the option to play in Spain might have to take less wages to play in another league. Not to mention that many players may have citizenship ties to Spain but not other countries with high-level pro football. Finally, it's worth remembering that many of these players are thousands of miles from home and being able to speak in their native language may be a big draw for them.

People are awful, and the bread and circus that is professional sports can only do so much to bridge the real gaps created by racism, nationalism, and xenophobia. It's quite unfair, but it's usually people in these marginalized groups that make it big in entertainment (sports and music) who are expected to do more than is reasonably fair to ask of them in combating prejudice.
 

wonderland

New Member
Jul 20, 2005
525
Question from the relatively uninformed. Is there any real possibility that this causes a significant number of players (or a number of significant players) to avoid La Liga altogether?
What Jude Bellingham decides is one pretty
good data point if he signs with Real Madrid. He’s been linked with them. Of course, there are plenty of other reasons for him not sign there.
 

singaporesoxfan

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 21, 2004
11,882
Washington, DC
I'd be very curious to know how black players view their experience across high level football across Europe. I do think that Spain and Italy have a worse reputation than England, Germany, or Holland, but that's just a reputation. And even having said that, I think it was Ozil who said that when he played well for the German NT he was loved, but the moment he had a bad stretch he was subjected to anti-immigrant/anti-Turkish abuse. The French NT said the same thing after the WC Final last year. Sadly, you can find anecdotal evidence of racism and xenophobia across Europe without looking too hard.

Rudiger and Sterling called out the EPL within the last 5 years.

Onyewu said he was assaulted in Belgium for being black, and also verbally abused by other players.

The French NT said they had awful shit said to them after losing the 2022 WC final. Including Mbappe, Coman, and Tchoua.

In addition to Ozil's very public statements about German racism, Jude Bellingham has said that he's been racially abused and Jens Lehmann was fired by Hertha for a racist text message he sent 2 years ago.

The list of black players racially abused in Italy is long. Lukaku and Balotelli have both been outspoken about it.

Maradona was famously abused for being a "wild South American" with a lack of control and discipline. This stereotype is probably a big reason why I'm so defensive of the Albiceleste NT if I'm being honest.

In sum, I have no real idea how to answer your question. What I will add is that we need to recognize there are a plethora of other hugely important factors at play here. For starters, players that have the option to play in Spain might have to take less wages to play in another league. Not to mention that many players may have citizenship ties to Spain but not other countries with high-level pro football. Finally, it's worth remembering that many of these players are thousands of miles from home and being able to speak in their native language may be a big draw for them.

People are awful, and the bread and circus that is professional sports can only do so much to bridge the real gaps created by racism, nationalism, and xenophobia. It's quite unfair, but it's usually people in these marginalized groups that make it big in entertainment (sports and music) who are expected to do more than is reasonably fair to ask of them in combating prejudice.
The thing is while racism and xenophobia exist everywhere, this saga shows that La Liga still lags behind the EPL in terms of at least its public tolerance of racism at the official level. Like, whatever the EPL's faults, there's no way you would get Richard Masters saying the kind of things Tebas is saying. And EPL is actually pretty good about targeting and ejecting fans who shout racist things. Helps that even the British tabloids were quite uniformly condemnatory about the racist comments about Rashford et al missing the penalties in the Euro Championship final. Meanwhile, Valencia press continues to be defensive.

What Valencia fans did is shameful and has completely turned me into hoping their club suffers a long time from horrible football. You want a better owner? Be better fans.
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
A summary of Tebas’s press conference:
He apologized for his initial response to Vini
He supports stadium closures for fan behavior
La Liga would back players or teams that leave the field
He would support the idea of point deductions in extreme examples like what happened at Valencia and Atleti

He spent some time relitigating the battle for jurisdiction between La Liga and RFEF, as well as local authorities. In essence, La Liga can only report issues to RFEF or the authorities and cannot hand down their own punishments. La Liga has been fighting for the right to hand down these punishments for years. Tebas went so far as to say La Liga is responsible for fans and their behavior from the moment they leave their homes for a game until they return, and should have the right to act as judge, jury, and executioner. I have no issue with La Liga working in tandem with authorities ala American sports where the league can hand out punishment even if law enforcement does not press charges. A two tier system with La Liga handing out punishments for the top two tiers and RFEF doing so in the rest and the Copa can be problematic. La Liga and Tebas have constantly said that they don’t have the authority to do anything, which I’m not sure is entirely true. Whatever the case, it seems self serving for La Liga to try to wrest more power out of this situation.

I do appreciate that this was done on a Brazilian network and that Tebas apparently did not shy away from any questions. That being said, this was 100% damage control for something caused in part by Tebas himself. It bears repeating that Tebas responded the exact same way earlier this season when Vini complained about La Liga not addressing racist chants at the Metropolitano (which seemed even worse to me than what we all saw at the Mestalla).
 

Jake Peavy's Demons

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 13, 2013
430
Didn't see this posted here yet, but Flamengo, Viní Jr.'s club when he played in the Brasileirão, played in these kits last night in their game in a draw with Cruzeiro. "All with Viní Jr."

65375

65376
 

BrazilianSoxFan

Member
SoSH Member
Apr 11, 2006
3,751
Brasil
View: https://twitter.com/MadridXtra/status/1670156030511030275?t=jBDxab1-RSJQWRU1gc0bpw&s=19


Viní Jr’s friend Felipe Silva was subjected to racism before the match. While arriving, a security guard approached him, took a banana out of his pocket & said ‘Hands up, this is my gun for you’. @geglobo
View: https://twitter.com/MadridXtra/status/1670157951342968838?t=UQjvMcJwMM_7CfM3KXgylw&s=19


The incident between Viní Jr’s friend & the security guard has been reported to the police. @JorgeCPicon
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
You can see the banana in the pocket of the security guard in the second twit...
Just to follow up on this, apparently there is some security footage that has been sent to the police who are investigating. The incident took place at the RCDE Stadium which is home to Espanyol and is in Barcelona. That’s important because the Catalan police will be the ones investigating the matter and are more likely to update the public than the police in Madrid, if for no other reason than to show that they are handling the situation differently.

Espanyol fans tend to be more socially conservative drawing from the pro-Spanish Catalan population dating back to the pre-Franco years (hence the team name). While the club has been trying to move beyond the old distinctions between themselves and Barcelona, they still attract an unsavory side. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy thought that this was funny and entirely acceptable (just stereotyping based on his age and allegiance). His defense is “it was my lunch and it fell out of my pocket”, and he is quite possibly a little surprised to find himself in any trouble at all. The fight against racism is going to be long haul in Spain.
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
Yunus Musah sort of chimes in during an interview with Meg Swanich for The Guardian. It covered a lot of territory and only briefly touched on this subject at the end of the article The money quote:

“Honestly, I wasn’t shocked, because I’ve seen a lot of that stuff happen a lot before,” he says. “Not in our stadium, but around La Liga. So I wasn’t really surprised. Which is sad, because, it’s just really shouldn’t be normal. It shouldn’t be normal.”

https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2023/jun/20/yunus-musah-interview-usmnt-valencia-soccer-vinicius-junior

He went on to explain what is what like that day at the stadium. The worst part is that Yunus put out a tweet later to explain his position and to defend Valencia’s handling of the situation, and it was met with pretty ridiculous statements by the Mestalla faithful (tweet and responses in Spanish).

View: https://twitter.com/yunusmusah8/status/1671263293162553346?s=46&t=XvGOrrWIyL-5CHVVL_0JYQ
 

Titans Bastard

has sunil gulati in his sights
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 15, 2002
14,446
Espanyol fans tend to be more socially conservative drawing from the pro-Spanish Catalan population dating back to the pre-Franco years (hence the team name).
I've always thought it's strange that the pro-Spanish club in Barcelona has a Catalan language name.
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
I've always thought it's strange that the pro-Spanish club in Barcelona has a Catalan language name.
That’s relatively recent. When I was a kid, it was spelled Español. The change in spelling was part of the effort to detach the club from its political heritage which was seen as a liability.

edited to make myself feel old. The change took place in 1995.
 

Zososoxfan

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 30, 2009
9,209
South of North
That’s relatively recent. When I was a kid, it was spelled Español. The change in spelling was part of the effort to detach the club from its political heritage which was seen as a liability.

edited to make myself feel old. The change took place in 1995.
TIL! Very interesting.
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
The saga continues, this time in Sevilla. A few fans were photographed making very obvious monkey motions at Vini Jr. after he was involved in a shoving match that started with the Sevilla GK (who took an embarrassingly weak dive that kicked the whole fracas off). I watched the game and didn’t notice any chants or anything, but the stadium was visibly rocking at this point so it’s possible racist chants were drowned out.

Anyways, the photos of the fans are pretty widely available online. One appears to be a kid. The second tweet below has a video where you can see the kid make the motion several times.

https://x.com/fabrizioromano/status/1715853379597975885?s=46&t=XvGOrrWIyL-5CHVVL_0JYQ

https://x.com/americafakts/status/1715854753224155418?s=46&t=XvGOrrWIyL-5CHVVL_0JYQ
 

sdiaz1

New Member
Apr 17, 2013
111
The saga continues, this time in Sevilla. A few fans were photographed making very obvious monkey motions at Vini Jr. after he was involved in a shoving match that started with the Sevilla GK (who took an embarrassingly weak dive that kicked the whole fracas off). I watched the game and didn’t notice any chants or anything, but the stadium was visibly rocking at this point so it’s possible racist chants were drowned out.

Anyways, the photos of the fans are pretty widely available online. One appears to be a kid. The second tweet below has a video where you can see the kid make the motion several times.

https://x.com/fabrizioromano/status/1715853379597975885?s=46&t=XvGOrrWIyL-5CHVVL_0JYQ

https://x.com/americafakts/status/1715854753224155418?s=46&t=XvGOrrWIyL-5CHVVL_0JYQ
Fucking heartbreaking to watch that boy act in such a hateful way.
 

rguilmar

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
1,610
Vini addressed the media prior to the anti-racism friendly in Madrid. He answered questions for over a half an hour, at times breaking down. It was very difficult to watch.

“If I leave here, I’m going to give the racists what they want,” Vinicius Jr said. “I want to stay here, at the best club in the world, so they can continue to see my face. The president (Florentino Perez) supports me, the club supports me… If I leave, it would be a triumph for the racists.”

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/68660177