Valencian paper Superdeporte rail against ‘campaign from Madrid’ following Vinicius Junior racism

Valencia-based sports daily Superdeporte have complained of an unfair representation of Valencia the club and their fans following racial abuse towards Vinicius Junior on Sunday night.

Their cover story on Tuesday was dominated by the headline ‘Enough already’, while featuring prominently on their website was the headline ‘Condemnation of racism and defence of Valencia’.

That cover story complains that Valencia have been harshly treated by VAR, the RFEF (in relation to Jose Gaya’s four-game ban at the start of the season), and then that Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti signalled the ‘whole stadium’ was chanting monkey at Vinicius.

Ancelotti would later during a tweet reduce that quantification to a group of fans at Mestalla.

“There is a campaign from Madrid in a season in which Valencia and its fans have already been victims of arbitration and tremendously unfair decisions and ask for respect for Mestalla. Valencia has been the team most harmed by the referees and specifically by the VAR,” reads the front cover.

“The club demands the utmost respect for its fans for his exemplary behavior on Sunday at Mestalla and, at the same time, strongly condemns the Valencianistas who hurled racist insults at Vinicius from one of the stadium’s ends. They are perfectly compatible. Although the Madrid media machine does not want to understand it.”

While it is no surprise that Valencia and Valencia fans did not take kindly to Ancelotti’s comments that it was a ‘whole stadium’ being racist, perhaps the problematic part is that the reaction to that has been far stronger than the reaction to the racism suffered by Vinicius Junior.

Those things may well be compatible, but in this case it seems like at best a major oversight for that to be the main thing being condemned, rather than the racism. In this instance, the two fans who have been banned for the incident, and the racism itself, have literally been reduced to a footnote on the front cover.