the keys to the impunity of racism in Spanish stadiums

BarcelonaThe stain of racism mars the name of the Spanish football league. After seeing how at least one Valencia fan uttered racist insults at Real Madrid’s Brazilian player Vinícius Júnior, the association chaired by Javier Tebas has tried to defend itself from the barrage of criticism received, especially from Brazil, where even the president, Lula da Silva, spoke about it. The case has transcended the sporting field, as Real Madrid has decided to go to the State Attorney General’s Office as a private prosecution to investigate the facts.

According to Real Madrid, the facts “constitute a direct attack on the coexistence model of our social and democratic state of law”, which is why it presents “the corresponding complaint before the State Attorney General, specifically before the Prosecutor against crimes of hate and discrimination, so that the facts are investigated and responsibilities are cleared.” The Association of Spanish Footballers (AFE) and the Movement against Intolerance have also submitted a complaint to the hate crimes and discrimination area of ​​the State Attorney General’s Office. The two bodies believe that LaLiga, the Spanish Federation (RFEF) and the government “have the necessary disciplinary mechanisms to act forcefully in the face of this type of act”.

Vinícius, who would end up being expelled for a later brawl with the Valencia players, identified at least one fan who would have imitated the gesture and noise of a monkey. At the end of the game, the Brazilian received an avalanche of support from other footballers and politicians, but also criticism, especially from the Valencian community, who accused him of being a provocateur. Whites coach Carlo Ancelotti called for action to be taken forcefully and stop the matches, as he claimed that “the whole stadium had chanted” that the Brazilian is a monkey, a fact that Valencia denies.

There was a heated debate on social media over whether videos recorded at the stadium showed fans chanting the word tonto o mono. Different associations of Valencia fans reported that a video recorded outside the stadium when the Madrid bus arrived had been manipulated, since the audio of the racist insults of the Atlético fans had been superimposed on it from Madrid a few months ago. Valencia announced that once the guilty fans are identified, they will be banned for life if they were members of the club, as was already done in 2019 with a supporter who was caught making a fascist salute in a match against arsenal Most of the far-right radicals of Valencia can no longer enter Mestalla for the same reason for years.

Picabaralla between Thebes and Vinícius

The case has once again placed the League and Vinícius at the center of the hurricane. The two parties, instead of supporting each other, have crossed statements accusing each other, just at a time when the relations between Real Madrid and the president of the League, Javier Tebas, they are very bad because of the Superliga affair. Tebas criticized Vinícius for generalizing and stating that “the League is racist”, recalling that his has already presented us with 9 complaints of racism this year, 8 in incidents with the Brazilian footballer. “We cannot allow the image of a competition to be tarnished by a specific case”, he added, and accused Vinícius of not knowing the protocols of the League against racism and of not having attended two meetings where the ‘they had invited to talk about the subject.

The agency that represents the Brazilian, TFM, and Frederico Pena as the highest representative counterattacked by stating that Vinícius was “immobilized in a cowardly, violent and unacceptable manner”, and accusing the Spanish league of not being able to “accept that the athlete more decisive” is “a young black man”. In the statement they said: “We have witnessed scenes of widespread, intentional and already institutionalized racism, which are among the most disgusting in the history of football. Three years after the world was shocked by a video in which George Floyd was brutally immobilized, today , the whole world has witnessed an event in which Vinícius has been immobilized in a cowardly, violent and unacceptable manner during an argument”. The international press as well as personalities such as the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, have shown solidarity with the player, recalling how in recent years Spanish football has seen different cases of racism against players such as Eto’o, Iñaki Williams, Dani Alves or Roberto Carlos, among others, without the closure of stands or stadiums.

Consulted by the ARA, the football league explains that the commitment against racism “is non-negotiable” and that the referee of the match, Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea, applied the protocol against racism “to perfection” . The protocol explains that “provisionally stopping the match where racist, xenophobic or intolerant behavior occurs, both in deed and word, is a faculty reserved to the referees”. If the referee, as the Basque referee did, considers that it is necessary to stop the match, they proceed to ask through the public address system and the screens in the stadium that these attitudes be condemned, as happened in Mestalla. Should the incidents continue, the referee may request that a new message be given stating that if the insults do not stop, the match will be suspended for good. In this case, De Burgos Bengoetxea considered that it was not necessary to do so after talking to all the parties and seeing how the National Police entered the area of ​​the Valencia fans where the incidents had taken place. State security forces identified and arrested two people.

This protocol is inspired by the one proposed by the body that controls world football, FIFA, where matches are ordered to be temporarily stopped in cases of racism, in order to identify those responsible and take action. And if necessary, suspend the match for good, something that has not yet happened in the big leagues. Xavi Hernández, Barça coach, showed his support for suspending matches if necessary in cases of racism. “Only in football is it normalized that you can go to the field to insult”, he added. Spain’s law against xenophobia in sport works in a similar way: it gives referees powers to stop the match, but asks them to prioritize finishing it.

The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), which maintains a bad relationship with the League, has asked Tebas to be tough, betting on “closing stands and stadiums” if necessary. “We have a problem in our country, the first thing is to recognize it. Of behavior, of education, of racism. As long as there is a single fan, an undesirable or a group that insults because of sexual condition, because of skin color, because of creed , we have a serious problem that tarnishes an entire team, a fan, a club and a country.” Rubiales also criticized the attitude of Tebas to ask Vinícius to inform himself “adequately before criticizing and insulting”.

Politicians have their say in the middle of the election campaign

The incident, in the middle of the election campaign, has quickly jumped into the political sphere, with some politicians rushing to defend that “Spain is not racist”, such as the candidate for re-election as president of the Madrid region, Isabel Diaz Ayuso The Valencian president Ximo Puig has condemned the “worrying racist insults” adding that the entire Valencian fans cannot be criminalized, while exemplary sanctions were demanded from the left. The Minister of Equality and secretary of government action of Podemos, Irene Montero, has “roundly condemned the racist attacks and aggressions”, and has stated that it must be linked to the “normalization of hate speech” by of certain political parties. One of the parties that has spoken the least on the subject is Vox, precisely the one that votes for Javier Tebas, president of the League.

The ninth case of racism reported in a year in La Liga has come just in a season in which cases of racism have multiplied throughout European football, especially on social networks, as a study by the British association Kick shows It Out, which highlights the good work done in the English league against racism in stadiums, with expulsions and harsh sanctions, but warns of how racist abuse is growing on the internet. In Italy, this season there have been serious insults to players such as Romelu Lukaku, from Inter, or Juventus’ Serbian Dusan Vlahovic, who have not yet ended up with serious sanctions. Cases of racism have also increased in France, while in Eastern Europe the situation is very worrying.

According to the Kick It Out report, from 2018 to 2023 cases of racism reported in stadiums have grown by 35% in Europe’s major leagues, partly because there is now more value in reporting it and, in part, “for the normalization of far-right racist discourses in society; what happens in society reaches the stadiums”, according to Christos Kassimeris, a professor of political science in Cyprus who specializes in racism in football, who has col· worked on this report. “What is worrying is that many of the protagonists of racist incidents are young people who have seen how some politicians normalize racist attacks. People who access racist content on the networks and take them to stadiums.” Kassimeris admits that bigotry leads fans to justify a racist slur at a rival player, making it less important.