Spanish football is once again dealing with an incident of overt racism, after a Cadiz player made an offensive tweet.
Cadiz winger Ivan Alejo tweeted out some laughing faces and a monkey emoji after Brazil were eliminated on penalties by Croatia. It is believed to be a reference to Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior, who was abused earlier in the season with chants from Atletico Madrid fans, singing ‘Vinicius, you are a monkey’.
Ivan Alejo, además de un pésimo futbolista, es un completo sinvergüenza. Escribió esto haciendo referencia a Vinicius tras la eliminación de Brasil.
Lo ha borrado a los pocos minutos, como buen cobarde.
Espero que no vuelvas a pisar el Bernabéu. pic.twitter.com/bC4eBcZfKy
— Jose Padilla (@JosePadi_) December 9, 2022
Shortly after, Alejo deleted the tweet and claimed that it had be misunderstood. Instead he replaced the monkey emojis with dancing emojis.
“As you have seen, I have deleted a tweet because I have realised that an interpretation has been made that was not what I wanted to convey.
I’ll correct it.”
Como habréis visto, he borrado un tuit porque me he dado cuenta de que se ha hecho una interpretación que no era la que yo quería transmitir.
Lo corrijo:
🕺🏼🕺🏼🕺🏼🫢🫢🫢— Ivan Alejo (@ivanalejo7) December 9, 2022
This comes in the context of those Vinicius chants being ignored by the Spanish authorities without punishment, as they were within the context of a tense football match.
Disappointingly, the hope that racism can be eradicated as far as possible from Spanish football seems almost non-existent when overt instances of racism go unpunished. If anything, these incidents appear to be on the rise.
Vini, just keep scoring goals.
That usually shuts the dung flies up. Dont pay any attention to literal nobodies.
“Vengeance is mine”.
-God.