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’.
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.”
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.