Vinicius Jr – latest: Real Madrid racism row sees four arrests as La Liga seeks more powers to fight abuse

APRIL 2014: Barcelona defender Dani Alves had a banana thrown at him as he was about to take a corner kick at Villarreal’s El Madrigal stadium. Alves peeled the fruit and took a bite. A 26-year-old man was later arrested and charged with a “breach of fundamental rights and civil liberties”, fined 6,000 euros and banned from attending football matches for two years. Villarreal were also fined 12,000 euros.

AUGUST 2016: Referee Carlos Clos temporarily suspended a match between Sporting Gijon and Athletic Bilbao after racist chants against Bilbao striker Inaki Williams. RFEF’s Competition Committee ordered the partial closure of one of the stadium’s stands.

DECEMBER 2019: A second-division match between Rayo Vallecano and Albacete became the first to be cancelled because of offensive chants directed at players. Left-wing Rayo ultras had called Albacete’s Roman Zozulya - a white Ukrainian striker - a “nazi”. La Liga backed the referee’s decision saying it was “against all racism and xenophobia” in football.

JANUARY 2020: Racist chants against Bilbao’s Williams at Espanyol’s Cornella-El Prat stadium sparked the first xenophobic hate crime trial in Spanish football, with only one fan indicted. Prosecutors are seeking two years in prison, a fine and a stadium ban for him in the ongoing trial.

APRIL 2021: Valencia’s Mouctar Diakhaby said rival player Juan Cala cast racist insults at him at the Ramon de Carranza stadium in Cadiz. The entire Valencia squad left the pitch for a few minutes but later returned without the French defender to avoid a penalty. La Liga later said it had found no evidence Cala directed racist language at Diakhaby.

JANUARY 2023: Spanish police launched a hate crime investigation after an effigy wearing Vinicius Jr’s No 20 shirt was hung from a bridge in front of Real Madrid’s training ground ahead next to a banner in Atletico Madrid’s red and white colours that read “Madrid hates Real”.

FEBRUARY 2023: La Liga filed a legal complaint after Vinicius Jr was racially abused by Real Mallorca supporters. In response, Mallorca withdrew a fan’s membership card for three years.

Sports reporter Jamie Braidwood on the latest ugly episode in La Liga:

It is another week in LaLiga. Once home to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the Spanish top-flight is going through a period where it has a relative scarcity of stars: it does not have Erling Haaland, it does not have Kylian Mbappe.

It does, though, have Vinicius Jr, the leading light of Real Madrid and the new face of Brazilian football, an unmissable, thrilling forward with lightning feet and a ruthless edge in front of goal. Thanks to Vinicius Jr, LaLiga may be able to claim it has the best player in the world once again. He is the most important player in the division - and he is routinely a victim of vile, despicable racist abuse at away grounds.

On Sunday, Vinicius Jr had enough, sent off after he was targeted with monkey chants during a 1-0 defeat at Valencia, the latest incident to bring shame on Spanish football. The 22-year-old pointed out fans to the referee who had racially abused him at the Mestalla and as tempers flared between the two teams he was shown a red card for shoving Valencia striker Hugo Duro, even though Vinicius Jr had been held back from around the neck moments before.

Vinicius Jr was in tears, the pain written clearly across his face, unable to prevent what was unfolding again. Courageously, Vinicius Jr called out LaLiga, where he said racism had become “normal”. Spain, he went on, was known as a “country of racists” in Brazil after the events of this season, with abuse “encouraged” by opponents. Yet amid the widespread condemnation of the incident, Vinicius Jr was criticised by the LaLiga president, Javier Tebas, for “insulting” the organisation. The manner Tebas chose to respond was reflective of an attitude that has seeped into the roots of Spanish football, where the racist abuse Vinicius Jr receives on an almost weekly basis is somehow his fault, and is a response to how he plays the game.

Four people have been arrested in Spain under suspicion of hanging an effigy of Real Madrid forward Vinicius Jr off a bridge in January.

An inflatable doll dressed in a Vinicius shirt was hung from the railings with a banner that read “Madrid hates Real Madrid” ahead of Real’s Copa Del Rey game with city rivals Atletico at the start of the year.

And Spanish police confirmed on Tuesday that four suspects had been apprehended.

The arrests follow the latest racism scandal that has engulfed Spanish football, with Vinicius targeted by racist chants during Sunday’s LaLiga game with Valencia.

Valencia’s sponsor Puma offered its support on Tuesday to Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr after he was racially abused during their LaLiga match in Spain over the weekend.

Vinicius labelled LaLiga and Spain racist after receiving racial slurs from fans in Sunday’s game at Valencia’s Mestalla Stadium.

The Brazil forward pointed out the fans who were insulting him, leading to the match being paused for 10 minutes, and then got into an altercation with Valencia’s players which led to him being sent off in the second half. Real lost the game 1-0.

“At PUMA, we do not tolerate racism, we condemn discrimination in any form and stand in solidarity with Vinicius Junior and the wider football community in condemning events yesterday,” Puma, which sponsors both Valencia and LaLiga, said in a statement to Reuters.

Valencia’s other sponsors Coca Cola, Skoda, Cazoo and Caixabank did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Spanish bank Santander, whose title sponsorship with LaLiga ends after this season, also voiced support, saying it “strongly rejects all racism and discrimination” in any form.

LaLiga will request greater jurisdiction to punish clubs whose fans are guilty of racist abuse after feeling “powerless” at the lack of current sanctions in the wake of the latest Vinicius Jr incident.

The Spanish league is engulfed in a racism scandal after Real Madrid forward Vinicius was allegedly subjected to racist chants during Sunday’s game at Valencia and later claimed it was an example of “continuous episodes spread across several cities in Spain”.

LaLiga, according to the country’s law, can currently only identify and report incidents, and punishment is rarely handed out.

Now it wants legislation changing so that it has the power to impose punishment such as forcing games to be played behind closed doors or financial penalties.

Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti said on Tuesday he expected Brazilian forward Vinicius Jr to remain at the Spanish club despite facing racist abuse in several LaLiga matches.

“I don’t think (he will leave Spain), because he loves football and he loves Real Madrid. His love for the club is very big and he wants to make his career here,” Ancelotti told a news conference.

He said Vinicius was “very sad” yet overwhelmed by the “unconditional support” he was receiving “even from rivals.”

“He is the victim of what’s going on. Sometimes I see people putting the blame on him, saying that he provokes, about his attitude... no!” he said, adding that the fact that the insults had started as soon as the club bus arrived at the stadium invalidated arguments that Vinicius had provoked the fans.

Seven people were detained by Spanish police earlier on Tuesday, accused of different hate crimes against Vinicius Jr, including racist slurs allegedly hurled at the Brazilian during Sunday’s match at Valencia’s Mestalla stadium.

The arrests come a day after football federation chief Luis Rubiales said Spanish soccer has a racism problem, the 10th complaint filed by Real Madrid for racist abuse against Vinicius in Spain this season.

Ancelotti urged authorities to take more effective actions against racism and hate speech in soccer and said the protocols in place to deal with the issue were obsolete.

“I want actions! And nothing has been done yet.”

Italian soccer will take a “zero tolerance” approach to racist fans, using technology to help identify offenders and ban them from stadiums, the head of Serie A said on Tuesday.

The issue of racist abuse of players is high on the agenda in European soccer after Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr was targeted during a weekend match against Valencia in Spain.

“There are in stadiums, as in society, a percentage of racist people,” Serie A chief executive Luigi De Siervo told reporters.

“Today with technology and stadium microphones they can be heard and we can punish them. It’s a battle, like a tumour you have to systematically remove it even if it has recurrences,” he added.

De Siervo noted that Italy had banned around 170 Juventus fans after they hurled abuse at Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku during an Italian Cup semi-final last month, calling it an example of the “path to zero tolerance” for racists.

The Italian government will invest 10 million euros ($11 million) to promote Serie A abroad, using the sponsorship to support its own “Made in Italy” export campaign, De Siervo told reporters at the briefing.

Serie A has slipped behind the English Premier League and Spain’s La Liga in terms of earnings power, and Italian soccer has struggled with fan violence and other scandals.

Juventus, the most successful club in Italian soccer, were docked 10 points on Monday as part of one of the inquiries into the club’s accounting.

But De Siervo said that investment by overseas funds in recent years showed that Serie A was on the way back, with the presence of Italian clubs in the three major European finals this season underscoring the recovery.

He said the Juventus case, relating to the accounting of transfers, showed Italy was tackling an industry-wide issue.

“We are the only mature country that looks at the problem and tries to solve it for the future,” he said.

Police detained seven men on Tuesday over separate alleged racist incidents against Real Madrid football player Vinicius Jr as Spain’s main soccer league urged changes to Spanish law that would enable it to take steps to curb racism in stadiums.

A hate crime investigation was opened after an inflatable effigy dressed in the No. 20 jersey of winger Vinicius Jr was hung from a bridge in front of the club’s training grounds. Alongside it was a 16m (17.5-yard) red and white banner - the colours of rival team Atletico Madrid - that read “Madrid hates Real”.

Four men were arrested in Madrid, police said, three of whom were members of “a radical group of fans of a Madrid club”, who were previously flagged during matches as “high risk” to help curb violence during games.

Three men were also arrested in Valencia for racist conduct aimed at Vinicius in a match between Valencia and Real Madrid, police said on Twitter.

The arrests come a day after football federation chief Luis Rubiales said Spanish soccer has a racism problem, following a race-crime complaint lodged by Real Madrid.

After slurs were aimed at Vinicius Jr during a Spanish league match on Sunday, Vinicius Jr, in a social media post, called the racist abuse “inhuman” and asked sponsors and broadcasters to hold LaLiga accountable.

Some of the responses here provided by Carlo Ancelotti in his press conference:

“Condemning acts of racism isn’t enough. We have been condemning acts of racism for years.”

“Maybe in the future I’ll have to take the responsibility of taking the player and the team off the pitch, but it shouldn’t be my responsibility.”

“Apart from the racism, which is the most serious, it seems that there is a culture of insulting. I agree with Xavi, who I thought was exemplary with his comments. Why do we think the culture of insulting is okay in football? In the post-match press conference, they told me that they weren’t chanting ‘monkey’ (‘mono’) at Vinícius and that they were only chanting ‘silly’ (‘tonto’). Why is that even okay? That’s not a racial insult, but it’s also an insult. Why should we get used to insults? That has to stop. We’re tired of being insulted every day. It happens to Xavi. It happens to Vinícius, where there is more racism. It happens to many others. They say ‘son of a b***h’, they say ‘f***ot’, they say ‘I hope your parents die’. It’s not war, it’s sport. We have a great opportunity to stop this. The FIFA president was already very clear and I hope the Spanish federation, LaLiga and the referees can be clear too.”

Paul Pogba has posted to social media to offer his support to Vinicius Jr and says “nothing has changed” in the fight against racism.

“Who protects us? It’s not the first time, it won’t be the last either. But we must never let that pass again. We have so many examples and I think we all agree today that nothing has changed since then.

“Bananas, animal noises, songs against us? It’s mental illness and I think we all agree that neither ads nor slogans will change these people. If I’ve learned one thing this year, it’s that when someone has a black heart, nothing and no one can change that. If the institutions don’t want to find a real solution, let’s try to do it by ourselves, for ourselves.”