Diseased football world put to shame after Vinicius Junior breaks down in tears

Whatever the First World says about racism, however benevolent its stance on racism may be, the fact of the matter is it has not helped much. The kind of racial abuse Brazil and Real Madrid forward Vinicius Junior has suffered in the last few years manifests that. Football clubs, associations, UEFA and FIFA have been sensitive about the issue and have put a lot of campaigns in place to enlighten fans on the issue but sadly there is no end in sight to it.
What Vinicius Junior said on Monday ahead of Brazil’s international friendly against Spain at the Santiago Bernabeu is truly heartbreaking and reflects the sorry state football is in. The 23-year-old, in an emotional state of mind, said owing to racism he wants to play football less and less and that often it takes him a very long time before he moves on from a horrific episode of racism.
For as long as one remembers football is plagued by racism. Pele, the greatest footballer the game has produced to date, too had to experience racism all through his playing career. And he didn’t have to play in Europe to experience racism. Believe it not, he suffered it in Brazil. He played club football for Santos for a whopping 18 years. At that time, it was not much of a fashion for Brazilians to play in Europe like it has been in recent decades.
The South American country that has multiple races living together was under the Portuguese rule that lasted more than three centuries and truly ended in the late 19 th century. In recent years it has been claimed there is no problematic racism there owing to heavy miscegenation. Apologists will say anything!
That doesn’t absolve Brazil in any way. The truth is the darker the colour of skin, the closer one is to African facial features there, higher is their chance of being subjected to racism of one kind or another. It’s true though that today it’s probably much worse in Europe. During football matches in Europe, players of particularly African and Latin American origins are still being racially abused.
Vinicius Junior especially has been targeted. There is organized racism against him, it appears. Last season alone, there were ten instances of racism against him that were reported to the body concerned. In June, four men were fined and slapped with a two-year stadium ban for hanging Vinicius’s effigy near Real’s training ground earlier in the year in January. In May at Valencia, three men were fined and banned for a year for making racist gestures towards the player.
The winger joined Los Blancos in 2018 from Flamengo. After representing their B team in a few matches, he was promoted to the senior squad later in the year. He has not looked back since, and to all intents and purposes, has been a real achiever. Among many achievements, it was his goal that helped Real beat Liverpool in the Champions League final two years ago. Real Madrid are the most decorated club in Spain with 35 La Liga titles and 14 Champions League/European Cup triumphs. It’s understandable if their players are targeted by the fans of other clubs most but in the case of Vinicius they have taken it to another level.
After beating England on Saturday in which wonderkid Endrick pounced on a rebound off a Vinicius shot to score the only goal of the game, the Selecao now face La Roja on Wednesday as part of an anti- racism campaign under the slogan “One Skin”. This time Vinicius won’t play even in Real Madrid colours, so there are higher chances of insults hurled at him during the game. The good thing is he is resilient and has said he won’t give up so that racists don’t win the war.
Vinicius is doing what he can but the authorities need to do more to stop racism. It’s rampant in almost all leagues in Europe. Samuel Eto’o, Romelu Lukaku, Kylian Mbappe, Marcus Rashford and many others at one point or another have been the victim of racism — if not at the stadium, then definitely online. It can’t go on like this forever. Much more strict measures should be put in place to tackle this. The rest of the world is watching!