Four Suspects Arrested for Racist Attack on Real Madrid Star Vinicius Jr

Four sus­pects have been arrest­ed by the Span­ish police for their involve­ment in a racist attack on Vini­cius Jr, the Brazil­ian for­ward who plays for Real Madrid.

The attack­ers hung a dum­my of the play­er, dressed in his Real Madrid jer­sey with the num­ber 20, from a bridge near the club’s train­ing facil­i­ty. They also dis­played a ban­ner with the words “Madrid hates Real” in red and white, the col­ors of their rival team Atleti­co Madrid.

The arrests come after Real Madrid accused Span­ish foot­ball of hav­ing a racism prob­lem, a claim that was backed by the pres­i­dent of the Span­ish foot­ball fed­er­a­tion Luis Rubiales. Vini­cius Jr and oth­er play­ers have faced sev­er­al inci­dents of racist abuse in recent months.

The four sus­pects are being charged with a hate crime, and three of them are known to be active mem­bers of “a rad­i­cal fan group of a Madrid club”. They had been pre­vi­ous­ly flagged as “high risk” dur­ing match­es due to their poten­tial for violence.

The inci­dent has increased the pres­sure on LaLi­ga, the top foot­ball league in Spain, to take more action against racism in the sport. How­ev­er, the league has said that it can­not impose sanc­tions on offend­ers under Span­ish law, and has asked for more author­i­ty from the gov­ern­ment to deal with the issue.

The racist attack hap­pened before a match between Real Madrid and Atleti­co Madrid in the Copa del Rey quar­ter-finals ear­li­er this year. The inves­ti­ga­tion is still ongoing.