THOUSANDS racially abuse Vinicius Jr – LaLiga BLAMES HIM

Tom Hancock

• 22 May 2023 12:48 BST
• 3 min read

Real Madrid’s defeat to Valencia on Sunday took a particularly ugly turn as Vinicius Jr was vilely racially abused once again – and LaLiga chief Javier Tebas has sparked outrage by appearing to blame Vinicius himself.

As Real lost 1-0 at the Mestalla, the Brazilian star was taunted with chants of ‘Mono! Mono! Mono!’ (Spanish for ‘Monkey! Monkey! Monkey!’) by Valencia fans.

At one point, the game was paused after a clearly distressed Vini Jr. pointed out the abuse to the referee, but the match was eventually played to its conclusion.

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Vinicius – who received the first red card of his career late on for hitting out at Valencia’s Hugo Duro amid a mas brawl – took to Twitter at full-time to voice his anger. He wrote: “The league that once belonged to Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Cristiano [Ronaldo] and Messi today belongs to racists.”

Tebas then took aim at Vini Jr, claiming that he had missed meetings to discuss racism in LaLiga. He responded: “We have tried to explain to you what LaLiga is and what it can do in cases of racism, but you have not shown up to either of the agreed dates that you yourself requested. Before criticising LaLiga, you need to inform yourself properly Vinicius.

“Don’t let yourself be manipulated and make sure you understand the work we have been doing together.”

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Vinicius hits back

Later on Sunday night, Vinicius replied to Tebas’ remarks, tweeting: “Once again, instead of criticising racists, the president of LaLiga appears on social media to attack me … I'm not your friend to talk about racism. I want actions and punishments…”

Tebas wasn’t done yet, though, reacting to Vini Jr. by insisting: “Neither Spain nor LaLiga are racist; it is very unfair to say this.”

The LaLiga season finishes in two weeks’ time, but it’s probably fair to say that we haven’t heard the end of this.

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