Following the most recent incident of harassment towards Vincius Jnior, Spanish police intervened and detained seven suspects on charges of making racist slurs against the Real Madrid star.

For suspected abuse directed at Vincius at Valencia vs. Madrid on Sunday, three persons were apprehended in Valencia. For reportedly hanging the player’s effigy down a bridge in January, four people were detained in Madrid.

Never before had local law enforcement taken action so rapidly to punish players who were insulted by fans, and never before had soccer officials penalized a team so severely for its racist supporters.

Since Vincius brought attention to Spain by figuratively pointing a finger at those who racially assaulted him last weekend in Valencia, things have undeniably changed. However, some of the 메이저사이트 difficulties that existed before Vinicius’ case prompted Spain to take action are still there, particularly when it comes to criminally penalizing fans for their abuse.

“We have a racism problem,” As the attention of the world went to Spain, Luis Rubiales, president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), made the statement.

According to Carles Vinas, professor of Contemporary History at the University of Barcelona, the racial abuse that has surfaced from fan groups reflects Spanish beliefs and is not exclusive to football.

“Football does not develop in a bubble outside its environment, so it is a mirror that reflects society’s attitudes. If, as in the case of Spain, we face structural racism, it’s obvious that racism will be projected onto the stands of the stadiums. Therefore, It is illusory to pretend to eradicate racism from football or sport when it is perceived daily in society,” Vinas told DW.

Despite the exceptional attention brought on by the recent Vincius case, no one has ever been tried in Spain for racially abusing a footballer, thus it might be difficult to encourage fans to start making amends in court.

In 2007, Spain passed a legislation outlawing violence, racism, xenophobia, and intolerance in sports. However, not all instances of racism are criminally punishable; rather, only those in which the victim was also intended to suffer physical or moral harm.

“What is it going to take to criminalize these people?” Vinícius said this week in one of his many posts on Twitter criticizing the lack of action against racism in Spain.

Despite being “inappropriate” and “disrespectful,” the prosecutor who dropped one Vincius case said that the “unpleasant” racial chants directed at him were part of a rival soccer team’s routine fan satire.

He most likely anticipated a response from the sporting officials, who would suspend the game while the offenders were barred from the stadium. However, the game continued after ten minutes of tenseness and a warning to the Valencian fans over the loudspeakers. After the game, the Brazilian was dismissed for a fight with Hugo Duro, the center forward, but the referee spared his punishment. It was unclear whether the hundreds of residents chanting “tonto” (idiot) or “mono” (monkey) had increased their booing. Anyhow, the harm had already been done.

With the justification that the fan’s social media pages didn’t appear to prove that he was racist, another prosecutor who examined racist chants directed against Athletic Bilbao striker Nico Williams last year decided to drop the case.

One fan who called Vincius a monkey during a league game in Mallorca was the only one of the racist supporters who might have faced criminal charges prior to the case in Valencia. Vincius and the fan both addressed the judge earlier this year.

Iñaki Williams, a forward for Athletic Bilbao and Nico Williams’ older brother, is scheduled to stand trial this year as the first supporter accused of racial abuse in Spanish professional soccer. A fan of Espanyol insulted him during a game in 2020.

“The main thing we have to learn from all of this is that we are bringing visibility to a problem and everyone has been having to react to it to try to make sure it doesn’t happen 토토 again,” De Vega said. “The moment we have sanctions and clubs react and perpetrators are banned from stadiums and people start denouncing these acts, then we will have made great progress in eradicating this problem.”

Esteban Ibarra, president of the Madrid-based Movement Against Intolerance, Racism, and Xenophobia, expressed hope that the controversy brought on by the most recent incident of abuse against Vincius will influence how prosecutors handle cases of racism and other similar offenses.