Vinicius and Mestalla, nine months later

Vinicius will be back this Saturday at Mestalla nnine months after the racist insults received by the Brazilian player of real Madrid by some fans of Valencia They will lead to a judicial case that is still open and will generate massive media impact that is still ongoing.

In fact, the production company that is preparing a documentary about Vinicius For Netflix, it chose the match as one of its scenarios, but Valencia vetoed its accreditation saying that, as it did not have the rights to the match, its intention was to ‘monitor’ the stands throughout the match to find of reactions. against Brazilians.

Judicial resources They confirmed to EFE that the case in which the three Valencia fans are being investigated still has some final proceedings pending. In fact, several witnesses are scheduled to testify over the course of several days. In that sense, it is expected that the investigation will end in a short time and the judge will have to decide whether to continue and move towards a trial.

Vinicius declared on October 5 and, although one of the accused’s lawyers assured that he had spread racist insults throughout the stands, the transcript of his statement, to which EFE had access, confirmed that he was offended, that the insults happened even. before entering the stadium and he noticed the excitement of the whole stand, but he didn’t mention that the whole stand made racist insults.

In any case, the first interpretation behind the words of the lawyer led to Valencia which made a statement in which the club pointed out that racism “cannot be fought with inaccuracies or baseless lies” and demanded that Vinicius a public correction of his “alleged statement”.

The match in which the events took place was played on May 21 and corresponds to matchday 35 of the League. Valencia went into the game sunk in the fight to avoid relegation and were just three points behind Getafe, who occupied the third-to-last position, and Madrid after being eliminated from the Champions League after falling 4-0 to Manchester City.

Vinicius Jr and other Madrid players They have experienced racist insults when getting off the bus at the Mestalla gate from some followers. “You’re a monkey”, “shitty black” or “Go to the Bioparc” are some of the phrases that can be heard in the videos that captured the scene and caused LaLiga to file a second complaint. A few months ago it was archived after the National Police reported that it could not identify the authors.

In the field, the Brazilian player He became the subject of new insults and, at some point, he made gestures in the stands predicting a relegation for Valencia, but nothing led to Ricardo De Burgos Bengoetxea to stop the crash. The match reached relegation with a score of 1-0 after a goal from Diego López.

In the second half the tension grew and, before a corner, Vinicius left the field of play along the baseline and notified the National Police after it was determined that a supporter from the cheering stands had made gestures like a monkey.

At that moment, the referee initiated the protocol established for these episodes and stopped the clash to announce it over the public address system. Some players from Madrid They faced the fans who were in that area and Like sent it to Vinicius who demanded that those followers be kicked out of the stands.

Images from various media and Valencia’s inner circuit finally allowed the three to be identified and, that same evening, the Mestalla club announced the “expulsion for life” of those involved.

Football player He told the referee he wanted to stop playing, but the referee told him that if it happened again the teams would go to the locker room in ten minutes and that if there was a third chance the match would be suspended. Finally, the match resumed and the Brazilian continued on the field.

In a high-tension environment, a few minutes later Vinicius He was expelled for an attack on Hugo Duro. As he went to the tunnel of the locker room, the stands greeted him with shouts, mostly, of “stupid, stupid” and the player repeated those who sent the Mestalla team to the Second Division.

In the press room, the coach Carlo Ancelotti He said he was going to stop the fight. “What happened today happened later, but not like this. It’s unacceptable,” he said. “Here it’s not a man gone mad, it’s a stadium gone mad,” he said. “When he got a red card, the whole stadium shouted ‘monkey, monkey’,” concluded the Italian, whose words had a far-reaching echo.

The Government of Brazil released a statement a few hours later, within an hour the Christ of Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro was left in the dark and the sports brands that dress the player, Madrid and Valencia released statements, ads and campaigns against racism.

In fact, the Mestalla club launched ‘VCF World’ in September, a project against racism and other discrimination that includes a decalogue of behaviors for players, employees and fans.

Despite the fact that a journalist told him in the press room itself that the crowd was really shouting “stupid, stupid”, Ancelotti He did not change his speech until two days later. “When I refer to the Mestalla, I’m not referring to 46,000, just the group with a very bad attitude, like a group in Mallorca and another in Valladolid. There are not 46,000 and I apologize if that was misunderstood, but there are also not two or three.” , he stated then.

That same night, the League filed a complaint that was not the first for racist insults against the Brazilian player. In fact, at the request of the clubs’ employers, seventeen proceedings were opened for the alleged racist insult to Vinicius, of which five have been archived and twelve, including one in Valencia, are still open also.

In the case of this procedure, LaLiga has extended the victim status to Eder Militao, which he declared at the beginning of January after asking to postpone the first appearance, something his compatriot has done twice, one of which was because he was on vacation.

Corresponding to ordinary justice, the Committee of Competition made two decisions: he left the red card unpunished Vinicius and instituted the closure of the Mestalla Entertainment Stand for five games, a penalty which the Appeal left in three despite Valencia’s attempts to avoid it and which caused Rubén Baraja’s team to play in that empty place in the crucial match against Espanyol on matchday 37 and the first two of this campaign