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Mario Balotelli racially abused in French league and opposing team shamefully pleads ignorance

Mario Balotelli
Balotelli: “So is racism LEGAL in France?” (Getty Images)

Sigh.

It had been a while. And so, sadly, it seems it was time for yet another chapter in soccer’s all-too-long Book of Racism. This time around, Italian Nice striker Mario Balotelli was the target of monkey noises emanating from the Bastia fans in their Ligue 1 game on Friday. It wasn’t the first occasion on which Balotelli became the target of racial abuse.

The abuse began before the game.

And it carried on throughout the match between second-place Nice and 16th-place Bastia, which would end 1-1, with Balotelli insulted in all manner of graphic ways and again subjected to monkey noises.

Balotelli reacted on Instagram.

“I have a question for the French people,” he wrote. “Is it normal that Bastia supporters make monkey noises and ‘[ooh ooh]’ for the whole game and no one of the [disciplinary committee] says nothing? So is racism LEGAL in France? Or only in Bastia? Football is an amazing sport. Those people, like Bastia supporters, make it horrible.” He closed by writing “A TRUE DISGRACE” in French.

And the 26-year-old striker makes a salient point. The only reason this incident became a big deal, which it since has, is because the media and Balotelli himself called attention to it. The referee, match commission, home club and home players did nothing.

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Bastia, based on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, further incriminated itself with its statement on Saturday. It said that the accusation of monkey noises had “stigmatized” the club and its fans.

“Having at no moment witnessed or been informed of this last night, by neither the referees nor delegates, or by a single member of OGC Nice about any incident of this kind,” the club wrote, “we are stupefied to have discovered these accusations after the fact, which bring a serious allegation to the club as a whole.”

Then the club went on to say it had always been “committed to fundamental values of respect” and that it owed a debt to players of all races to have worn its colors. It added that it would cooperate fully in the league’s investigation – which has since been announced. It said “that type of behavior is inherently stupid and unacceptable.”

Yet the footage doesn’t lie. The monkey noises may have been overlooked during the warm-ups, when few would have been paying serious attention. But it was unmistakable during the game itself, as you can see in the second clip above.

On Monday, Nice president Jean-Pierre Rivere chimed in as well. “We can only be shocked by these actions,” he said. “Racism is unacceptable, in a football stadium just as it is everywhere else.”

Indeed. And it doesn’t help when the home team pretends it has no idea what’s going on. Because that’s implausible. Even if it’s true, it’s Bastia’s responsibility to police the behavior of its own fans. If it had no knowledge of this, that’s a failure just as damning as hearing the chants and doing nothing.

Do better, Bastia.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.