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On Tuesday the sports judge has acquitted the Italian Inter footballer Francesco Acerbi for the alleged racist insult uttered against Napoli’s Brazilian Juan Jesus, during the Inter-Napoli match on March 17th. According to the sports judge, there was not enough evidence to prove Acerbi’s guilt.
In the ruling the sports judge explained that he had failed to reach the level of “reasonable certainty” required in cases of this type. Concretely it means that he ascertained that Acerbi addressed some type of insult to Juan Jesus, but from the examination of the elements he had available (external testimonies, footage of the match) he was unable to verify that they were racist insults. Consequently, according to the judge “the seriously discriminatory content” would be “confined to the words of the offended party”, i.e. there would be proof of the racist insult only from the testimony of Juan Jesus.
At a certain point during the match Juan Jesus complained a lot to the referee about having been called a “nigger” by Acerbi. The latter had approached Juan Jesus and the referee to apologise, and at least on the pitch the two had clarified. After the match Juan Jesus had said in an interview that Acerbi had “gone a little further with the words” but he realized he had exaggerated, making it clear that he considered the issue outdated. However, he had not openly said that he had received a racist insult. In the following days Acerbi denied having addressed a racist insult to him, and then at that point Juan Jesus intervened publicly to specify that instead it had happened exactly like this: «Acerbi told me “go away black man, you’re just a black man”», had written are Instagram.
The prosecutor’s office of the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) had opened an investigation into the case in the days following the match, after Acerbi had also been excluded from the national team’s retreat pending a judgment against him. The sporting justice code (which has different rules from ordinary justice)article 28 establishes various sanctions for “discriminatory behaviour”, which also includes racist insults: according to the code, those responsible must be punished with at least 10 match disqualification and can also be prevented from participating in football events for a certain period in Italy, with the possibility of extending the ban throughout Europe and worldwide. For professional footballers there is also a fine of 10 to 20 thousand euros. The 10-match ban is the minimum required by FIFA in these cases, the body that governs world football.
Article 28 defines discriminatory as “any conduct which, directly or indirectly, involves offence, denigration or insult for reasons of race, colour, religion, language, sex, nationality, origin, including ethnic origin, personal or social condition”. It is not specified that the insult must occur during a match: theoretically, a player responsible for racist insults off the pitch can also be punished.
– Read also: How can a footballer who utters a racist insult be punished