Yesterday in Valencia, it wasn’t Real Madrid who lost (1-0), but football. Thus, at the end of the game, the fury of Carlo Ancelotti is more than justified, even though he usually does not lose his temper and is indeed famous for his calmness. But what he saw and heard, or rather the episodes of racism of which his player Vinicius was a “victim”, hurt him and he can’t help but talk about it. “I had never seen and heard before – his words – an entire stadium being racist and shouting ‘monkey’ ‘monkey’ at a footballer.” It happened at the end of the game when Vinicius was sent off for having hit the Valencian Hugo Duro in the stoppage. But previously there had been other howls, chants and verses, and so many, to the point of inducing the Brazilian to go on the sidelines and point to the stands pointing his finger at those who, according to him, were insulting him. Thus, while objects rained down from the bleachers on Vinicius, who was flanked by Eder Militao and the Valencia captain, Gayà, who tried to calm him down (“I want to leave” shouted the No. 20 of Real), the referee the announcement to the speaker that the game, which had remained on ‘stand by’ for ten minutes, risked being definitively interrupted. Then instead it resumed, until the final brawl.
«During the match I spoke to Vinicius – Ancelotti said again – because there was a heavy, very negative environment, and I asked him if he wanted to stay on the pitch. But I didn’t want to replace him because of racism, it’s never happened to me, it’s unacceptable. This is not the case, the Spanish Liga has a problem, which is not Vinicius, he is the victim. What can be done? I know that you can’t play football like this, and I would say the same thing even if we had won. It’s too serious, they insult Vinicius all the time and in the end they show him the red card. I’m very sad, this is a championship with great teams but there is something to eradicate, we are in 2023. The only way is to stop the game, it is true that there is a protocol but in cases like this you really have to go home ».
«There have been complaints about it in the past, but nothing at all – continued Ancelotti -. The solution is to stop the games, because we can’t go on like this. Vinicius is the player who suffers the most fouls but also the most insults. When they showed him the red card the whole stadium shouted at him “monkey”, “monkey”, “monkey” and for this I am very sad: such a thing had never happened to me before. He is still a boy and he wanted to continue, but in these conditions it’s complicated. For me today the match should have been suspended definitively, in the stadium they were crazy and never before today had I heard racist insults coming from an entire stadium. And when everyone insults you like this it’s hard to stay cool. However we will support Come in any way.”
