Vinícius Jr. is being racially abused during La Liga matches. Why is nobody being punished?
Vinícius Jr scored the goal that secured Real Madrid’s 14th European Cup last May, and this season his brilliance has continued to light up the team’s Champions League campaign.
The supremely talented 22-year-old – widely considered one of the world’s best players – has six goals in seven matches in Europe and another eight in La Liga, but he has also become a repeated victim of “hate crimes” in Spain, according to a players’ union.
Ahead of the derby against Atlético Madrid in January, an effigy of Vinícius was hanged from a bridge in Madrid, while racist slurs have been caught on camera during Real’s matches at Osasuna, Mallorca, Real Valladolid and Atlético.
As of yet, there have been no punishments handed down by Spain’s leading football authority – the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) – or any local prosecutors, but investigations into some cases are still ongoing.
Unlike in England, where the Premier League and English Football Association (FA) can punish clubs or fans for incidents of racist abuse, LaLiga – Spain’s top football division – tells CNN Sport that it does not have this authority.
Instead, LaLiga can only pass on any incidents of abuse to RFEF committees or regional prosecutors, who deal with them as legal cases before sporting punishments are handed out.
LaLiga says it gives out the ‘Fan’s Handbook,’ written in collaboration with the Club Supporters’ Federation, in stadiums before each season starts, highlighting which practices should “represent the values” of football.
It also sends a ‘Player’s Handbook’ to every player before the start of the season, encouraging them to be respectful and to report any racist or violent behavior they witness.
In a statement sent to CNN, the Spanish Players’ Union (AFE) – which helps to support victims of racist abuse in LaLiga – explains that Spain’s penal code considers these incidents to be hate crimes and punishable by law.
“So it is the State, the Justice and the Security Forces [police and Civil Guard] who must investigate and act immediately in the face of this type of event,” the AFE said. “Then, within the sports field, there is a disciplinary code that also contemplates possible sanctions for this type of conduct. We want to insist that what happened with Vinícius is a hate crime, which is criminally prosecuted.”
However, following an investigation into racist chants of “You are a monkey, Vinícius, you are a monkey,” aimed at the Brazilian before and during Real’s match against Atlético on September 18, 2022, LaLiga told CNN that the local Madrid prosecutor didn’t pursue the case because the yells were within the context of other “unpleasant and disrespectful” chants during a “football match of maximum rivalry.”
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Piara Powar, the executive director of the Fare Network, an organization set up to combat discrimination across European football, says football leagues and authorities in Spain are “washing their hands” of these incidents.
Then, either through disinterest or a lack of understanding of football and the gravity of these incidents, local prosecutors are not adequately dealing with the investigations, Powar says.
“In Spain, this structure has been allowed to develop over the years and it hasn’t been challenged,” he says. “You often have an individual judge, who is linked to a local authority or a regional authority, who then sits as a quasi-judicial figure instead of a disciplinary committee or regulatory commission, which is what happens in other countries.
“Often, the individuals taking them are then completely disconnected from football and completely disconnected from the implications of their decisions, and often apply a mixed standard of evidence to them based partly on a criminal standard and partly on a civil standard – and the two standards are very different.
“So you have these cases that are being constantly dismissed and when they are passing the judgment on them, the sanction is usually a minor fine that has no impact at all.”
Powar says the way football and legal authorities in Spain deal with incidents of racist abuse at matches has led to the “system falling apart” in the country.
“It’s not effective, it has never been effective and some people treat it as a joke, but nobody relies on it as a reliable intervention that’s going to create a change,” he adds.
“I think you genuinely have an FA [RFEF], who either through disinterest or just through not understanding what they need to do, who are not doing anything themselves.
“We now need to move to a centralized template to assist the way UEFA is looking at how FAs are conducting the disciplinary regulations, how they’re enforcing them and making sure that the processes are fit for purpose.”
CNN has contacted the RFEF for comment but is yet to receive a response.
‘Racist campaign against Vinícius’
Incidents of players being racially abused by fans have tarred numerous LaLiga matches this season.
In total, LaLiga detailed to CNN Sport – at the time of publication – 12 separate cases of racist abuse to Black footballers dating back to January 2020 that it has passed on to local authorities.
Instances of racist abuse directed at Vinícius make up eight of these cases and four – including three involving the Real star and one involving Athletic Bilbao’s Nico Williams – have been archived without a punishment being handed out.
In addition to the local Madrid prosecutor choosing not to issue any punishments because they only “lasted for a few seconds,” other reasons from regional prosecutors for not trying cases include “could not identify the perpetrators,” “does not seem to be” covered by the penal code and “do not cross the line for a penal breach,” LaLiga said.
When asked to explain how it failed to identify the fans who racially abused Vinícius at FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium on October 24, 2021, the Barcelona prosecutor said they are not able to reveal details as the investigation is private.
“What is clear is that they analyzed all the evidence they had and did not identify, in this case, any perpetrator,” they told CNN in a statement.
“In other cases, the investigation has been successful, such as the racist insults to Iñaki Williams [in January 2020] where the prosecution, after the investigation was carried out, filed a complaint and described it as a hate crime. It is currently awaiting a trial date.”
Powar says for a football regulatory case to take three years, “particularly a very simple one,” proves how “the system is failing in Spain.”
“These hearings should be heard by a committee of the FA, independently appointed, and they should be heard within days, if not weeks,” he adds.
“That is how this system should operate and then the sanction that results is implemented during the season, very quickly and the principles of natural justice are respected, but as it is, the victims are being failed.”
The painstakingly slow process in Spain appears all the more convoluted when compared to a recent case in England, in which a local court handed down a three-year ban to a fan just three months after he had shouted a racist slur at Chelsea’s Raheem Sterling.
Esteban Ibarra, the president of the Movement Against Intolerance, a Spanish organization that aims to educate on discrimination and track incidents of racist abuse in football, called the archiving of the Vinícius case at the Camp Nou by local authorities “inconceivable.”
“We flatly deny that Spain is a racist country, but we affirm that there are numerous racist behaviors in our country,” Ibarra added in a statement on the organization’s website.
“We maintain that there are plenty of racist incidents, which have not been stopped when there is relevant legislation and sufficient law, policing and institutional capacity to put an end to this ignominious behavior.
“The racist campaign against Vinícius began a long time ago.”