Vinicius Junior was racially abused during Real Madrid's match in Valencia on Sunday
As football England and Spain Teams lined up under anti-racist slogans in November 2004. The sounds of monkey chants against black footballers in England reverberated around Real Madrid's Bernabéu stadium.
It was a night of shame for Spanish football and the country as a whole. Almost 20 years later, the same chants accompany one of the most famous players in the Spanish league — and one of the best in the world — throughout the country.
Now Vinicius Jr., 22, wants to break the cycle and risks tearing Spain apart. In a social media post on Monday evening, the Brazilian striker listed just a few of the heinous insults he received in a carefully edited video with Portuguese and English subtitles.
«In Brazil, Spain is known as a land of racists.» he said the day before. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva intervened, calling on football authorities around the world and in Spain to «take serious action» against what he pointedly called «fascism and racism.»
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry summoned the Spanish ambassador. Two decades after the world condemned Spain in Madrid, the country is once again forced to confront its demons.
Despite the fact that the country is becoming significantly more diverse, many are wondering if this time will be different .
A cada rodada fora de casa uma surpresa desagradável. E foram muitas nessa temporada. Desejos de morte, boneco enforcado, muitos gritos criminosos… Tudo registrado.
Mas o discurso semper cai em «casos isolados», «um torcedor». Não, não são casos isolados. São episódios… pic.twitter.com/aSCMrt0CR8
— Vinijr (@vinijr) May 22, 2023
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who hopes to improve relations between Europe and Latin America when he steps in as EU presidency in July, was quick to call on Monday for «zero tolerance for racism in football».
“Hatred and xenophobia should have no place in our football or in our society,” Sanchez tweeted. But racism is on the rise in Spain.
The government's latest annual report on hate crimes for 2021 indicates that the number of racist attacks increased by 32% compared to the previous year and exceeded 630. An estimated 90% victims of hate crimes do not report them.
Just as Marcus Rashford spoke out publicly against racism after he was vilified after he missed a penalty for England in the Euro 2020 final, Vinicius Jr is determined to highlight the issue.
In In a Twitter video on Monday, the player depicts a panorama of institutional inaction despite blatant and repeated expressions of racist hatred, including his effigy «suspended» on a bridge outside Real Madrid's training facility.
“Every away match is a nasty surprise. And this season there were a lot of them. Wishes for death, a hanging doll, many screams of criminals… Everything is recorded. But we are always talking about “isolated cases”, “fans”. No, these are not isolated cases. These are continuous episodes spanning several cities in Spain.”
Scarecrow arrests
Spain authorities seem to have moved into action this week, with four people arrested for the scarecrow incident that took place in January and three detained for racist slur player in Valencia.
«Peace with Vinicius,» sports newspaper AS wrote on Tuesday, noting that support for the player's podium is pouring in from all directions. Fans' round with Vinicius Jr. on Sunday. Photo: Aitor Alcalde Colomer/Getty Images Europe
The fallout from the abuse of La Liga's most profitable star also threatens to tarnish the competition's declining prestige as it continues to lag behind the English Premier League in terms of economic impact.
Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, has fought the rearguard of efforts to save Spanish football's reputation. «Neither Spain nor La Liga are racist, it's not fair to say so.» he tweeted in Spanish, English and Portuguese.
Politicians campaigning ahead of Sunday's local elections across Spain lined up to denounce the violence Vinicius endured, but many continued to isolate problem as a problem of a small minority.
“Spain is not a racist country. no way,” said the leader of the opposition People’s Party, Alberto Nunez Feijoo. Others accused Vinicius himself of inciting supporters of the opposing teams.
Socialist Valencia Region President Ximo Puig said Valencia fans were «not racist at all» and added: ".Players must be good professionals, and they should not act arrogantly.
«La Liga has a problem»
El País, one of Spain's largest newspapers, wrote in an editorial: «La Liga has a problem, and that problem is not Vinicius.
It is significant that the Spanish lower house of parliament has only one black MP out of 350. Culturally, racism in the form of stereotypes is common in Spain. The word «mono» or «monkey» meant for black footballers is not uncommon, and what are considered racial stereotypes and slurs in Britain is much more ingrained in the language.
According to Esteban Ibarra, president of the non-governmental organization Movement Against Intolerance, Spain remains a relatively tolerant country, but it fails to solve the problem of racism, which, in his opinion, is constantly “trivial”.
“We are on dangerous path. way because of the generalized permissiveness. In football, idleness and inaction on the part of referees, La Liga, disciplinary committees and prosecutors who do not enforce the law and prosecute hate crimes have exacerbated the problem,” Mr. Ibarra told The Telegraph.
However, the campaigner hopes that «Vinicius' moment will be decisive, and the law will be applied with all rigor, and the authorities will realize that they can no longer look the other way.»
After a night of shame at the Bernabéu in 2004, FIFA fined the Spanish football federation 100,000 Swiss francs, but the Spanish government and sports authorities downplayed the incident, focusing on the unacceptable behavior of a «small minority» of spectators.
Time will tell how much Vinicius' position marks watershed or Spain will just return to complacency.
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