In celebration of the “invisible friend” game proposed by the Italian club Benetton Rugby, the Argentine player Ivan Nemer gave a rotten banana as a gift to his teammate Cherif Traorè, who decided to make the situation public.
After learning about the situation, the Federal Court imposed a sanction on the Argentine, who will not be able to participate until July 2023. With the sentence handed down, the rugby player had the opportunity to talk about it and express his regret.
“Racism has not had and will never have any role in my life, as it should not have in the lives of any of us. I am deeply sorry for what happened, for the stupidity of my gesture, for the disgust caused to a friend, for having caused damage to my team, to my teammates, to the country that I represent and to the game that I love”, he commented in the first place.
Likewise, the rugbier maintained that “what happened does not represent me, but at the same time it should make me and make us reflect on how much more remains to be done to change our culture, overcome the most blatant stereotypes, get even closer than we already are.” .
For his part, Traorè issued a disclaimer through his social networks. “When it was my turn, I found a rotten banana inside my gift, in a wet bag. Apart from finding the gesture offensive, what hurt me the most was seeing most of my classmates present laugh, as if everything was normal.” he explained.
In addition, the Guinean rugby player said that “I decided not to shut up this time to make sure that incidents like this don’t happen.”
