Brazil Soccer Star Vinicius Junior Targeted by Racism by Fans in Spain

Despite being the most watched sport in the world, being extremely popular on all continents, soccer still has a major racism problem. This reared its head during a La Liga match in Spain when Mallorca fans targeted Real Madrid's Brazilian forward, Vinicius Junior, with racist insults.

According to The Guardian, a video showed Mallorca fans calling the Brazilian, who is black, a monkey. The video of the racist name-calling on the 22-year-old Real Madrid forward has now circulated across social media.

Javier Aguirre, the manager of Mallorca, denied that any of his players targeted Vinicius in what was a very emotional and ill-tempered match. The Brazilian was called for 10 fouls during that one match which was the most given to any player in the La Liga this season.

La Liga has been reporting incidents of racism against soccer players to not only the Spanish Football Federation but also to local authorities. With this incident, the league has vowed to do the same as "intolerable racist insults against Vinícius were again observed."

According to the Associated Press, the league is now working with RCD Mallorca to identify those who made those racist insults against Vinicius Junior and "take all necessary legal measures." Those with any knowledge about who those individuals are can send any information to a specific La Liga email, StopRacismo@laliga.es.

Vinicius Junior Targeted by Racist Attacks Before

This was not the first time that Vinicius Junior had been subjected to racism in Spain. In fact, it has happened so many times that the Brazilian has accused La Liga of doing nothing about racist fans during matches last December,

He was subjected to racial abuse by fans at least three times in Spain. The first was at the Camp Nou in November 2021 when Real Madrid went against eternal rivals, FC Barcelona. The second incident happened against Atletico Madrid in September 2022, with the third one happening in a match against Valladolid in late December 2022.

There are also incidents that happened off-field, with the Spanish police now investigating a possible hate crime against him. Two weeks ago, a mannequin wearing his no. 20 shirt was hung from a bridge in front of the club's training center.

The incident happened just before the match between Real Madrid and cross-town rivals, Atletico Madrid, which Real won 3-1. It is believed that Atletico fans were the ones who hung the effigy, though police are still investigating who set it up.

England Leading the Charge Against Racism in Soccer

Racism has become quite the problem in soccer, especially with players from Asia, South America, and Africa all coming to play in the major European leagues.

One of the nations leading the charge against racism is England, though it seems that it is still having problems of its own when England's Bukayo Saka took the penalty kick in the Euro 2020 soccer final and missed, making England lose against Italy. This was followed by a flurry of racist attacks on his social media accounts flooding his timeline with monkey and banana emojis.

However, these English soccer stars are the ones leading the fight against racism itself, despite the setbacks. According to NBC News, Saka has called on Meta and Twitter for better social media policing against racist rhetoric, with other non-white players even calling out the British government for doing nothing. Their calls have even made then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemn the racial abuse that soccer stars are facing.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Rick Martin

WATCH: Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo danced in front of Atletico Madrid fans after they were racist to Vini - TD Football