Not even the golden headphones with which Vinicius Junior got off the Real Madrid microphone on Sunday at the Valencia stadium waterproofed him with the "You are a monkey, Vinicius, you are a monkey" that the local fans chanted. Nor of the imitations of the sound of the apes that rumbled in the stands of the Mestalla stadium from where the Brazilian striker ended up expelled and his team lost 1-0 with Valencia.
"I am strong and I will go all the way against the racists. Even if it is far from here," Vinicius said on his social networks and stirred up the microworld of Spanish football by leaving open the possibility of leaving the club that in 2018 paid 45 million euros for him.
This Monday, very early, the Prosecutor's Office of Valencia initiated an ex officio procedure to investigate the alleged hate crime for the racist insults received by the Real Madrid striker.In the course of the morning the club of the capital was presented, in addition, before the Attorney General's Office of the State as a private accusation for the crimes of hate and discrimination that has been suffering against the Brazilian.
A chorus of personalities, from Brazilian president Lula Da Silva to Paris Saint-Germain's Kylian Mbappe, condemned the assaults that ensued Vinícius' ears. The president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez, was with him on Monday. "The club will reach the ultimate consequences," he promised.
Carlo Ancelotti came out to bench to defend Vinicius Junior. Photo: AP
Racism in Spain
For Antumi Toasijé, president of the Council for the Elimination of Racial or Ethnic Discrimination (CEDRE), "racism has a long history in this country. We can say that Spain is the inventor of racism as we know it today."
"More than 88 percent of people do not report racism because they do not have confidence in the institutions and because in most cases their complaint will not prosper," the president of CEDRE, an independent body although linked to the Ministry of Equality, told Clarín.
"Here there has been a history with Francoism that is already known but, in recent years, there has been a growth of the extreme right that has made it possible for certain discourses that at the beginning of the century seemed to be silenced to have resurfaced," says Toasijé, who is also a historian and academic.
A poster of Vinicius outside the Bernabéu. Photo: AP
"There is, on the other hand, a pernicious judicial conduct. Most judges do not consider this issue as a priority or serious, he says. In Spain there is a narrative that says non-white people are not Spanish." The CEDRE report points out "an increase in racism in education, in the blocking of access to housing, even with Spanish nationality and work."
"Spain has been denounced at the United Nations for its lack of inclusion. According to our surveys, a person who is not white is 47 times more likely to be stopped by the police for no reason than the rest of the population," he said.
"I don't want to talk about football"
"Do you want to talk about football or do we talk about the other?" was the response of Carlo Ancelotti, the coach of Real Madrid, to the Spanish press that sought him after the game against Valencia.
"I don't want to talk about football but about what has happened here. I think it's more important," Ancelotti said. That a player is shouted 'monkey' and that a coach thinks about removing him from the field for this, means that there is something wrong. (Vinícius) didn't want to continue but I told him it didn't seem fair. 'You are the victim,' I said."
"Here there is not a person who shouts 'monkey' as has happened in many stadiums. Here's a stadium that insults a player for racism. You have to stop the game. They have started insulting him from the first minute. But nothing is going to happen," said the coach.
"I have no problem. For me Vinicius is the most important player in the world, the strongest in the world. LaLiga has a problem," Ancelotti said of the organizers of the first division championship.
Javier Tebas came out to defend LaLiga. Photo: REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
"Neither Spain nor LaLiga are racist, it is very unfair to say that," said Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga.
"From LaLiga we denounce and pursue racism with all the harshness within our competences," he insisted.
"This season racist insults have been reported nine times (eight of them have been for insults against Vinicius). We always identify the energúmenos and raise the complaint to the sanctioning bodies. It doesn't matter if they are few, we are always relentless," Tebas said.
Racism is an issue in the election campaign
Racism on the courts burns on the sensitive skin of Spaniards in an election year in which every issue, more or less mediatic, is pure combustion in the campaign agenda.
On Sunday 28 there are municipal and regional elections and the Vinicius chapter is already leaving its mark on the electoral board, especially in the Valencian Community, scene of the latest racist insults that Vinicius heard and one of the most disputed territories at the polls: its more than 3.6 million votes can facilitate access to the Moncloa Palace, the Spanish Casa Rosada.
"It is worrying that there are racist expressions in society; That breeding ground generated by the extreme right is there, unfortunately. But the Mestalla crowd I don't think is racist at all. There is someone who said some barbarity, "tried to attenuate on Monday the president of the Valencian Community, Ximo Puig, candidate of the PSOE for re-election.
The second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz – presidential candidate for the general elections in December with her new party, Sumar – said: "Football is very important and reproduces social behaviors. What has happened with racist comments is intolerable in a strong democracy."
The second vice-president of the Government of Spain, Yolanda Díaz. Photo: EFE/ Jero Morales
From Podemos, the minority party in the government coalition chaired by Pedro Sánchez, the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, said: "I want to condemn categorically the racist attacks on Vinicius, they are aggressions that unfortunately are repeated in certain sports areas. "
"Against racism, we already have institutional tools: sanctions and expulsions of racists in parties. But we need to process the Law against Racism now: education, training and change the immigration policy to move towards a better country, "proposed Montero.
The Popular Party also condemned the attacks on the Real Madrid striker: "In Spain there is no place for racism," said its spokesman in Congress, Cuca Gamarra.
"He's very sad," Ancelotti said of the mood of Vinicius, who arrived at Real Madrid as soon as he came of age. He will turn 23 in July.
Vinicius made a strong disclaimer against LaLiga. Photo: AP
Madrid. Correspondent
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