Vinicius hits out at La Liga after racist comments from Valladolid fans
The Real Madrid winger criticised La Liga’s lack of action following the racism he suffered at the Estadio José Zorilla.
Racism has no place anywhere in the world. But in football, it continues to rot through the core of the game like a disease. Vinicius Junior was subjected to racist remarks in the game against Real Valladolid on 30 December 2022. Various videos show the winger suffering abuse from fans after being substituted, calling him “monkey” among other disgusting things that I frankly don’t want to repeat.
Insulting someone due to the colour of their skin must be one of the most abhorrent aspects of humankind that unfortunately continues to weave its way through the people and find life in the worst of society across the globe.
You might imagine then, that entities of authority, such as La Liga, would be first in the line of people who wanted to stamp out this type of abuse, but you would unfortunately be mistaken. Yes, La Liga is yet to comment on the remarks and chants from Valladolid fans - not all of them of course, just a small minority - who abused Vinicius Junior.
This is the same Liga that fined Celta de Vigo for not being able to fill a specific side of the stadium so the product of the football match that they try so hard to sugar-coat and promote looked appealing to those watching on television.
This is the same country (albeit the RFEF in this case) that fined Rayo Vallecano after their fans sang about Zozulya. You can google who he is.
This is the same La Liga that fined Sevilla for singing how other teams are “sh*t”. Nothing else. But a €25,000 fine was handed out, no problem.
Now Vinicius Junior has been racially abused and La Liga prefer to stand still, covering their eyes because when they can’t see us, we can’t see them - is that how it works?
What did Vinicius Junior say?
“Racists continue to go to stadiums and watch the biggest club in the world up close and La Liga continues to do nothing... I will continue with my head held high and celebrating my victories and those of Madrid. In the end it’s MY fault.”
The winger rightly bemoaned the fact that the governing body of football in Spain has failed to react despite the videos being in the public domain, having been spread across social media for over 24 hours.
Will we see a reaction from La Liga? The only way this changes, from an institutional standpoint, is with hard action. Stadium bans can easily be introduced, huge fines may deter these people from coming to football, as well as providing education on why things like this are simply unacceptable.