He government of brazil issued a statement on Monday condemning “in the strongest terms” the racist attacks from which the Real Madrid footballer Vinícius Jr “has been repeatedly suffering in Spain”, the last time last weekend at the stadium in Mestalla, in Valencia, and has asked the Spanish authorities to act to prevent it from happening again.
“Taking into account the seriousness of the events and after another inadmissible episode (…) the Brazilian Government deeply regrets that up to now the necessary measures have not been taken to prevent and avoid these acts of racism“, says the statement, in which he asks the Spanish government and sports authorities to punish those responsible for what happened on Saturday.
At the same time, The Brazilian government has appealed to the highest world soccer body, FIFA, as well as the Spanish Federation and LaLiga to implement appropriate measures to prevent events like this from happening again.
“The Brazilian government has been acting in cooperation with that of Spain to promote racial equality policies and share knowledge and good practices to expand access to people of African descent and immigrants in sport with full intolerance to those practices that discriminate“, indicates the text signed by the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Racial Equality, Sports and Human Rights and Citizenship.
At a press conference, the Minister of Racial Equality of Brazil, Anielle Francohas shown its solidarity with the Real Madrid footballer, who has received the support of the entire country and the Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
“He is a young man who comes from the favelas, with immeasurable talent,” stressed the minister, who has reported that she has been able to speak in the last few hours with one of the player’s uncles, after she already did so two weeks ago with people around her, coinciding with her official visit to Spain.
“From the beginning we have always offered our support (…) it is inadmissible that we have to be here, in 2023, giving a press conference on racism. The ministry, Lula’s government, will be defending the black people, both inside and outside the country“said Franco.
“We don’t want a much larger scale to be reached”, said the minister, who pointed out that “the history of LaLiga is not good, it is quite racist”. and has pointed out how its president, Javier Tebas, “tried to place Vinicius as guilty” of the racist episodes suffered at Mestalla.
“We saw that similar cases had already occurred, obviously without the same repercussions as this one, and LaLiga was not positioned. It is inadmissible for the president to blame Vinícius. With the Government of Spain and the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, we are going to ask the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate LaLiga. We cannot be left alone to repudiate what happened, “she has advanced.
Franco has said that “the two countries are in contact”and that in addition to having discussed what happened with the Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, the Brazilian ambassador to Spain, Orlando Leite Ribeiro, on behalf of the Government, has already asked to meet with LaLiga.