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Former Barcelona, Juventus and France defender Lilian Thuram has criticized the treatment of Vinicius Junior and Nico Williams in Spanish football following incidents of racial abuse. Thuram, who campaigns for racial equality, has noted that
Thuram spoke at a UNESCO event held in collaboration with Barcelona last week, attended by president Joan Laporta, and highlighted that racism was far from being eradicated from Spanish football.
“Racism in football is a reflection of racism in society. The modern world has been built on the concept of the superiority of whites over other non-whites. If you look, the people who suffer racist insults in football stadiums are black people. Because? Because there is racism,” quoted TV3.
“Vinicius suffers from racism in Spain, but how many people are there who say it is Vinicius’ fault? Can you imagine that? “A young man suffers racism and we say that his behavior encourages racism… It is incredible.”
The World Cup winner made reference to an incident earlier this year in which Athletic Club star Nico Williams suffered racial abuse at the Metropolitano against Atlético Madrid.
“When a black player denounces racism, the first thing they tell him is to calm down. He wants to leave the field, but his teammates and the other team tell him: ‘Calm down, don’t leave the field.’ He feels attacked and becomes very nervous. And in the end the referee will give him a yellow card to calm him down. It is such a violent situation that those who suffer it end up not wanting to report it.”
The probability of departure of Andreas Christensen or Eric García has increased with the probable arrival of Jonathan Tah. @RogerTorello
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Thuram also called on journalists, directors, referees and family members to do more to help, but in particular asked white footballers to use their voice more often.
“It is a very sad fact: the silence of the white players. As a general rule, why don’t they do anything? There are some who talk, but the vast majority, when the game ends, we don’t hear them talk about racism.”
Vinicius and the Williams brothers have become the face of the battle against racism in Spanish football in recent years, and the Brazilian has even directly challenged La Liga president Javier Tebas to do more. Thuram has been an activist for some time and also suffered a lot of abuse during a tense time when Les Bleus won the World Cup in 1998.
