MADRID-. Three Valencia fans were sentenced to eight months in prison on Monday after pleading guilty for uttering racist insults against Vinicius Juniorthe Brazilian star of Real Madridin the first conviction for a case of racism in professional football in Spain.
The fans, whose names were not disclosed, will be banned from entering football stadiums for two years and will have to pay the cost of the judicial process.
They were arrested after a League match between Madrid and Valencia at the Mestalla stadium in May 2023. The match was interrupted for several minutes after insults to Vinicius.
The incident unleashed a wave of support for the Brazilian forward, who is black, and led to calls for the Spanish authorities and society to take more action.
It was widely interpreted as an important moment in the fight against racism in Spanish football, although Vinicius continued to suffer racist attacks after the initial uproar that accompanied the incident at Mestalla.
The sentence found the defendants guilty of a crime against moral integrity, with the aggravated circumstance of discrimination with racist motivation.
The case was reported to the courts by the League, together with the national football federation, Real Madrid and Vinicius.
Shortly after the incident he had already banned fans from his stadium. But no one had ever ended up in prison in Spain for racist insults to a footballer. Several cases similar to Vinicius’s were filed by prosecutors in the past.
Source: AP
