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Yago Dos Santos (right) in a basketball Bundesliga game
Photo: IMAGO/Photographer Peter Kolb / IMAGO/Peter Kolb
Racist calls against Yago dos Santos at an away game in Spain have triggered a wave of solidarity with the Brazilian playmaker of the basketball Bundesliga club ratiopharm Ulm.
"Be strong, my brother," tweeted football star Vinicius Junior from Real Madrid.
The North American professional league NBA also condemned the incident: "There is no place for racism, neither in sport nor in society."
In the EuropaCup game at Joventut Badalona (76:82), Yago dos Santos was clearly insulted in video images by a spectator several times as a monkey.
"Start punishing these people, or things will go back to how they used to be," wrote the Brazilian Vinicius Junior, who has recently been repeatedly the victim of racist hostilities.
Video message from Dos Santos
Dos Santos, Ulm's top scorer in the game, said in a video message: "Thank God I didn't hear it, because I don't know how I would have reacted." His consulting agency called on Ulm to demand sanctions from the European association.
The Brazilian basketball federation CBB, meanwhile, appealed to Spain's authorities "to act with the strictness of the law and that crimes like these no longer go unpunished".
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