Yahoo Sports La Liga president’s shocking disregard of racist insults against Barcelona star – ‘Only he heard…’
La Liga has shown promising signs towards the anti-racism battle in recent years, and Real Madrid star Vinicius Jr. has had a large role to play in the same.
As a constant ambassador for the anti-racism stance, the Brazilian has always been favoured by the league and granted protection against racist slurs with those inflicting it on him promptly punished.
The league, however, has once again proven to hold double standards on that front with Javier Tebas’ latest statements coming as nothing less than a disgrace.
A disappointing statement
Barcelona’s draw against Getafe earlier this month was an ugly game in many ways, but one issue that tainted the night was the racist slur thrown toward the Blaugrana superstar Alejandro Balde.
The young left-back admitted after the game that he heard insults directed towards him based on his skin colour during the match and the issue was immediately highlighted as racism has no place in football.
Speaking in a recent interview (h/t COPE), however, La Liga president Tebas was asked about the situation to which he shockingly said:
“The Balde issue is an issue that only he heard and we have to see what has happened.”
“Sometimes there are questions about… because that’s what the match officials are there for, there are more people. It was seen if it continued or not and it seems that they didn’t continue,” Tebas added unconvincingly.
While Tebas has been known to be a supporter of Real Madrid for a long time now, there are certain topics in the sport where double standards simply cannot hold a place. His reaction to Balde’s claim and pointing towards it possible being nothing is thus atrocious.
“It was a complicated situation. I received several insults. I don’t know what to say,” Balde said earlier today in an interview, confirming that he did indeed face insults.
It remains to be seen what action, if any, La Liga and Tebas take, given the disregard shown by the league president in his comments.
