MADRID —
Vinícius Júnior clenched his right fist and raised it above his head after scoring at the Mestalla stadium and for a moment he stood still to make sure everyone saw it.
The symbolic gesture he made at the beginning of March occurred almost a year after the Real Madrid forward ended up crying in the same stadium after racist insults from Valencia fans.
The incident sparked a wave of support for the Brazilian striker, who is black, and led to calls for the Spanish authorities and society to take further action.
At the time, many believed it would be a turning point in the fight against racism in Spanish football.
But 10 months later, Vinícius continues to be the target of racist abuse in Spain despite the initial outcry following the incident at Mestalla.
The Brazilian broke down and cried when referring to the insults before Tuesday’s friendly duel between Spain and Brazil, which was originally going to be played under the motto “One Skin.”
“Things have gotten worse since I first reported what was happening to me,” he said. “Because people haven’t been punished, they think they can continue saying things because of my skin color and try to affect my game. But they could do it another way and it wouldn’t have a problem. “I just want to play and I want to be able to go to the stadiums without being bothered because of the color of my skin.”
The meeting between Brazil and Spain will occur days after a new wave of racist insults against Vinícius throughout the country.
We are not making complete progress,” admitted Esteban Ibarra, president of the Movement Against Intolerance, Racism and Xenophobia. “There is a response, but in more serious cases, but there is no in-depth progress. In the end, if the dominant feeling is impunity, well, it will continue as before.”
On the night of March 2, the same day that Vinícius gave the Black Power salute at Mestalla, the Brazilian press reported that a child called the player a monkey in the stadium. The Spanish League was analyzing video of the incident, although it is not clear from images posted online whether Vinícius was the target.
A few weeks ago, reports emerged of racist chants directed at Vinícius outside the Atlético de Madrid and Barcelona stadiums before Champions League matches, although Real Madrid was not playing.
Vinícius retweeted a video in which several Atlético fans are seen jumping and singing “Vinicius chimpanzee”. A day before, Barça fans supposedly chanted “Vinícius, die.”
“I hope they have already thought about his punishment, the Champions League and UEFA. It is a sad reality that happens even in games where I am not present,” Vinícius published at the time on the social network X, formerly Twitter.
Reports also emerged of hateful chants of “Vinícius, die,” at Madrid’s league match at Osasuna on March 16. Madrid called the referee “negligent” for not including the chants in his match report. The club reported them — as well as the chants of Atlético and Barcelona fans — to the hate crimes prosecutor’s office.
“It is not pretty to see when these cases occur. We must continue fighting to eradicate racism, we must fight day by day so that it does not happen to Vinícius or any other player,” said Spanish defender Álex Grimaldo on Sunday.
Some of Vinícius’ rivals maintain that his casual style of play – which is common for a striker – and his clashes with his rivals have made him a target of rival fans. It is common for Vinicius to get into altercations and more than once he was seen responding to fans who provoked him from the stands.
There have been developments in cases against fans accused of insulting Vinícius last year, including four Atlético fans who allegedly hung an effigy of the player on a bridge in Madrid.
They were taken into custody as part of a wave of arrests following the incident at Mestalla and prosecutors are seeking a four-year prison sentence.
Other cases against fans who have insulted Vinícius and other players continue in court, but Spain is still waiting for the first trial against a fan accused of racial abuse in a professional match. The trial against the Espanyol fan who used racist insults against Athletic Bilbao forward Iñaki Williams in 2020 was expected to take place last year, but they are still waiting.
A man accused of calling Vinícius a monkey during a league game in Mallorca last season could also go to trial. Both the player and the fan appeared in front of a judge last year and Vinícius assured that he will not accept an apology.
The Spanish government has staked out the work of the permanent committee to fight against violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sport. The committee, which includes members of the Spanish league, authorities and the Football Federation, previously punished clubs with fines and stadium bans, as well as preventing certain fans from going to the stadium for long periods.
The Spanish league has actively denounced racism to the prosecutor’s office.
League president Javier Tebas said that La Liga’s fight against racism is becoming more visible as a result of the magnitude of the incident with Vinícius, although “it had already been working intensely for many years.”
“Strategy or actions will never be enough until we eradicate this scourge, but I can guarantee that the fight to end racism and any display of hatred inside and outside our stadiums is an absolute priority for the League and the clubs,” Tebas added in an email to The Associated Press.
“Society in general and football fans in particular are increasingly aware that these hateful attitudes are absolutely intolerable, constitute a crime and have no place in our society,” he said. “It is always necessary to continue fighting to eradicate any act of hate inside and outside our stadiums because, even though they are a minority, they tarnish the image of the competition, the sport and the country in general and generate irreparable damage to people against those that are committed.”
Ibarra said that hate incidents in football can be linked to the teams’ most extreme fans who often believe they are above the law.
“Ultras groups are very militant, committed groups,” Ibarra added. “As long as the ultra groups are not eradicated, the problem will continue to exist.”
Rafael Carlos de Vega, who works in the Attorney General’s Office of Spain, indicated that the lack of punishments for the most extreme fans is due to the difficulty in identifying the perpetrators when they act in large groups and which forces the cases to be archived.
He indicated that they have improved since the incident in Mestalla with Vinícius and pointed out that since then prosecutors who focus especially on hate crimes have become more involved.
“Racist insults, with some exceptions, don’t happen like before,” he said. “People are convinced that this is being punished and does not have to be done. Above all, what interests me the most is the message that society has to become aware of, because we only act when society does not respect people because of their color or their skin. When it happens we have to act”