Italian Soccer Player Subject to Racist Abuse on Field
Mario Balotelli at the 2012 European Football Championship. (Wikimedia Commons)
Italian soccer player Mario Balotelli was subjected to racist abuse from supporters of the opposition team on November 3, according to the Independent. Balotelli was born to Ghanaian parents in Palermo, Italy, and has made 36 appearances for the Italian national soccer team.
Balotelli’s team, Brescia Calcio, was playing an away game against the Hellas Verona team at Stadio Marc'Antonio Bentegodi, in Verona, Italy.
In the fifty-fifth minute of the game, Balotelli kicked the ball towards a section of the stands and threatened to walk out because he said some fans were making monkey chants at him, before being consoled by the other players on the field.
The stadium PA system made an announcement reiterating the Union of European Football Associations’ policies on racism and said that the match would be cancelled if the racist chants continued. As a result of the crowd’s jeers, the referee halted play for several minutes, and Balotelli came out of the incident with a yellow card for his complaints to the referee. He went on to score later in the game, although his team Brescia lost the match.
After the game, Balotelli published a scathing indictment of the crowd’s behavior on his Instagram story, writing, “The ‘people’ of this curva who made the monkey chants. [sic] Shame on you, shame on you, shame on you. In front of your children, wives, relatives, parents, friends and acquaintances ... shame,” according to the Guardian. A ‘curva’ is an Italian term referring to the curved stands in sports stadiums.
Balotelli also thanked the people who stood by his side during the incidence. “Thanks to all the colleagues on the field and off for the solidarity I had with me, and all the messages received from you fans. Thank you very much. You have proven to be true men not like those who deny the evidence. #notoracism,” he wrote.
The Hellas Verona team’s manager Ivan Juric said after the game that he did not think that Balotelli had been targeted with racist abuse.
“I am not afraid to say there were no racist chants today. They might’ve jeered and mocked the great player, but there was nothing there. Nothing,” Juric said, according to Sky Sports Italia.
Team president Maurizio Setti and the mayor of Verona also disagreed that Balotelli was subjected to racist abuse.
The Serie A Disciplinary Commission responded to the incident by closing the “Poltrone Est” section of Verona’s stadium for a game, according to the BBC.
A head of Hellas Verona’s ultras fan club, Luca Castellini, was given an 11-year ban by the team for comments he made about Balotelli after the game. “Balotelli's Italian because he has Italian citizenship, but he can never be completely Italian," said Castellini, according to the Washington Post.
Some supporters of Balotelli’s team criticized him too, according to Yahoo News. They wrote in a statement that “if Balotelli was not ready psychologically to face the Verona fanbase, then he should've said so and left his place to someone less... irritable than him. None of us would've been upset if he had, quite the contrary.” They defended Castellini and said that the entire Verona fanbase could not be considered racist.
The Balotelli incident is the latest in a series of similar events. In April earlier this year, Juventus player Moise Kean was racially abused by Cagliari fans after scoring against them. Later, his teammate Leonardo Bonucci said that Kean was equally to blame, as he provoked them with his celebration. Inter Milan and Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku was also targeted with racist chants by Cagliari fans after scoring against them.
The Batoletti incident reflects similar racist incidents not uncommon in the sport. Soccer players, referees, and staff from across Europe, notably soccer-heavy countries like the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain, have recounted experiences with racism in the sport, CNN reports.