Youth basketball referee victim of racist insults from parents: ‘It’s the third time, but I won’t give up’

Racist slurs first rained down from the stands and then out of the building repeated in the face of a young referee of 19 years. It happened last Saturday during a basketball game in the Tuscan championship under 14 Between Don Bosco e Poggibonsi at the PalaMacchia of Leghorn. In the final minutes of the match the referee Moustapha Ndiaye allowed two free throws to the guests and then a third for the coach’s protests. An irrelevant decision, however, because Don Bosco missed them and the match ended on 50 to 51. However, that was enough to unleash the racist hatred of the Sienese team’s parents in the stands. Not only that, because Ndiaye was also subsequently approached and verbally attacked, as he told in an interview with The Tyrrhenian Sea: “From the stands a woman yelled “Negro di m…”. I didn’t hear anything, because there was a lot of noise, my fiancée told me ashamed. Bad worse things they happened outside, as I was about to get into the car”.

Others outside the PalaMacchi racist names e homophobesthen howls and ironic applause, “while a man smoking a cigarette he blew me in face the smoke”. The 19 year old I’m going he confided to the Tuscan newspaper all his unease about what happened: “They had trampled on the my dignity. I can’t get over the fact that some people can too just think to behave in this way”. Behaviors held by parents who should set an example a young basketball players of 13-14 years: “Certain behaviors represent the opposite of the meaning of the word sport”. The problem is that for Ndiaye it is not even the first time: “It had already happened to me in 2022 during a game a chickpeas flour pie“. And again to Rimini: “During a tournament some fans sang cori against mealways because black”.

It is difficult for a young referee to cultivate his passion in such a context: “Last year, precisely because of the racist insults, I had decided to quit. From September to December, in fact, I no longer directed a match”. Then Moustapha Ndiaye decided to return to the parquet because “it is not possible to be offended by the color of the skin”. And after this further very serious episode a The Tyrrhenian Sea he assured: “Of course I continue, I like refereeing: I can direct the matches up to the Promotionas well as youthful ones. I started underage, when I was still playing. These people, the way I am, they will never make me depressed“.