La Liga have announced that they will request more powers in order to effectively combat racism, following the consistent insults and abuse that Vinicius Junior has received this season.
The governing body of the league has come under heavy criticism in the aftermath of the incident not only for the persistent nature of Vinicius‘ abuse, but also President Javier Tebas’ reaction to the matter. He took to Twitter to defend LaLiga’s role after statements from Vinicius himself, saying they had been taking all the action available to them, to which the Brazilian responded that he was quicker to defend the image of the league than him from the racism.
One of Tebas main points was that they did not have the power enforce sanctions, but they have now requested that they do so. In a press release, La Liga stated that they would ask for more power to combat the matter.
“LaLiga will request more sanctioning powers, with the aim of being more agile and effective in the fight against violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sport, where LaLiga has spent years leading the detection and reporting of these behaviours in the football stadiums, but feeling helpless watching how their denunciations end.”
“LaLiga feels tremendous frustration for the lack of sanctions and sentences by the sports disciplinary bodies, the public administrations and the jurisdictional bodies where their formal complaints are lodged.”
🇬🇧 𝐄𝐍𝐆l Intolerance and racism have no place in our football.
LaLiga condemns and always acts against any offensive or racist mindset, xenophobia and violence, on or off the field of play.LaLiga supports and will back @vinijr and any player who comes under attack, as it has… pic.twitter.com/UYtUZS9MqP
— LaLiga Corporativo (@LaLigaCorp) May 22, 2023
Currently, LaLiga can gather evidence, submit it to the Anti-Violence Committee and they will then recommend a sanction to the public prosecution. Their complaint is that far too often the case goes nowhere once it should reach the court level.
Presumably amongst the powers that they would be requesting are stadium bans and fines. While La Liga obviously cannot enforce sentences on people, being able to hit clubs financially and threaten fans with not returning to their stadiums, would represent a significant escalation from the current punishments being doled out.
Image via Jos Oliva
i am happy for this
hala Madrid