Real Madrid file hate crime complaint over Vinicius Jr abuse

Real Madrid have filed a hate crime com­plaint with Span­ish pros­e­cu­tors over racist chants direct­ed at their Brazil­ian for­ward Vini­cius Jr dur­ing Sunday’s game at Valencia’s Mestal­la sta­di­um, the club said in a state­ment on Monday.

“Real Madrid C.F. express­es its strongest rejec­tion and con­demns the events that took place yes­ter­day against our play­er Vini­cius Jr,” it said. The insults, in its view, “con­sti­tute a hate crime” for which the club has filed a com­plaint with the State Attor­ney General’s Office, the club said.

Sep­a­rate­ly, the Move­ment Against Intol­er­ance (MCI) and the Asso­ci­a­tion of Span­ish Soc­cer Play­ers (AFE) said in a joint state­ment they had also filed a com­plaint with the same prosecutor’s office, cit­ing racial slurs against the Black player.

Vini­cius Jr report­ed the fans who were insult­ing him, lead­ing to the match being stopped for 10 min­utes, and then got into a clash with Valencia’s play­ers which led to his red card in stop­page time. “It was not the first time, nor the sec­ond, nor the third. Racism is nor­mal in La Liga. The com­pe­ti­tion con­sid­ers it nor­mal, the fed­er­a­tion con­sid­ers it nor­mal and the rivals encour­age it,” Vini­cius wrote on Twit­ter after the match.

“The cham­pi­onship that once belonged to Ronald­in­ho, Ronal­do, Cris­tiano and Mes­si today belongs to racists. A beau­ti­ful nation, that wel­comed me and that I love, but that accept­ed to export to the world the image of a racist coun­try. I am sor­ry for those Spaniards who dis­agree but today, in Brazil, Spain is known as a coun­try of racists. I am strong and I will go all the way against racists. Even if it is far away from here.

” Real’s coach Car­lo Ancelot­ti also spoke out against the inci­dent on social media, say­ing: “Today has been a sad day at Mestal­la, where a group of fans have shown their worst ver­sion. It is time to stop talk­ing and act force­ful­ly. Racism has no place in foot­ball or in soci­ety. NO TO RACISM ANYWHERE.”

Vini­cius Jr’s team­mate and fel­low Brazil inter­na­tion­al Eder Mil­i­tao expressed his sup­port for the for­ward. “It’s a dis­grace! To suf­fer racism, to defend your­self and then be sent off try­ing to defend your­self! How long do we have to put up with this?”

The pres­i­dent of the Brazil­ian foot­ball con­fed­er­a­tion Ednal­do Rodrigues also sent a mes­sage of sup­port to the 22-year-old play­er. “How long are we going to expe­ri­ence, in the mid­dle of the 21st cen­tu­ry, episodes like the one we just wit­nessed, once again, in La Liga? There is no joy where there is racism.

Skin colour can no longer both­er.” La Liga will request all avail­able images in order to inves­ti­gate what took place in light of the inci­dent. “If any hate crime is iden­ti­fied, we will take the appro­pri­ate legal action,” it said in a statement.

Span­ish police are also inves­ti­gat­ing a pos­si­ble hate crime against Vini­cius Jr after a man­nequin wear­ing his No 20 shirt was hung from a bridge out­side Real Madrid’s train­ing ground.