La Liga President Javier Tebas has issued a second response to Real Madrid star Vinicius Junior, after the Brazilian accused him of being just as in the wrong as the racists that were abusing him.
Vinicius unfortunately suffered more racist abuse on Sunday evening against Valencia, during a heated encounter that saw Vinicius sent off later. The Brazilian then took to both Instagram and Twitter to express his disgust, referring to Spain as a racist country and saying that racism is normal in La Liga.
Tebas then told Vinicius that he was wrong to attack La Liga, claiming that they are doing all in their power to prevent and cut out racism, to wich the Brazilian issued his most recent response.
Having presumably slept on the issue, Tebas decided to reply again to Vinicius, defending the league and Spain as a whole. He claimed that ‘neither Spain nor La Liga are racist’.
He would go on to claim that racism is not a regular problem in Spanish football, and that over 220 black players play in the top two divisions with ‘the respect and affection of all the fans every day.
Given he is the face of a brand which is under pressure and has taken a publicity hit in the last 24 hours, Tebas appears to be taking matters into his own hands. The danger is that this gets reduced into a debate between Vinicius and Tebas, and not on more important matters.
Sunday evening felt like a boiling point for La Liga and the racism towards Vinicius, but so far there has been little talk of upping the ante in terms of punishments.
1) Ni España ni @LaLiga son racistas, es muy injusto decir eso.
2) Desde @LaLiga denunciamos y perseguimos el racismo con toda la dureza dentro de nuestras competencias.
3) Esta temporada se han denunciado 9 veces insultos racistas (8 de ellas ha sido por insultos contra… https://t.co/KFXHOJv6cb
— Javier Tebas Medrano (@Tebasjavier) May 22, 2023
Full statements
1) Neither Spain nor LaLiga are racist, it is very unfair to say that.
2) From LaLiga we denounce and persecute racism with all the harshness within our powers.
3) This season racist insults have been reported 9 times (8 of them have been for insults against Vinicius Junior). We always identify these madmen and file the complaint with the disciplinary bodies. It doesn’t matter whether there are just a few or not, we are always relentless.
4) We cannot allow the image of a competition that is above all a symbol of union between peoples to be tarnished, where more than 200 black players in 42 clubs receive the respect and affection of all the fans every day, racism being a series of isolated incidents (9 complaints) that we are going to eradicate.
