Real Madrid Accuses Ref of ‘Deliberately’ Leaving Out Harassment Star Player Received From Post-Match Report

Europa Press/AP

Spanish soccer club Real Madrid filed a complaint against a referee for omitting the harassment star winger Vinicius Jr. faced from the match report.

Throughout Madrid’s Saturday match against Osasuna, multiple players complained to referee Juan Martinez Munuera. In the team’s report, it claimed Munuera “deliberately omitted the insults and humiliating shouts repeatedly directed towards our player … despite being warned insistently by our players at the same time they were occurring.”

Additionally, fans could be heard chanting, “Die, Vinicius, Die” during the broadcast. Hearing this, Madrid captain Dani Carvajal turned to Munuera to bring it to his attention.

The situation has unfortunately become the norm for Vini Jr. The 23-year-old has endured at least a dozen instances of racist insults by rival Spanish fans since 2021. In May 2023, seven people were arrested for two incidents. Four men were arrested for hanging an effigy of Vini Jr. from a bridge, while the other three were arrested for racist chants directed at the start. The referee’s match report claimed they chanted “Monkey, monkey” at him.

“Additionally, Real Madrid has also filed a complaint with [the Disciplinary Committee of the Royal Spanish Football Federation] in relation to the aforementioned insults and humiliating chants,” the club said in its statement, “and has forwarded them to the State Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in the Sports, so that those fans who uttered them are identified and punished.”

In a statement published Tuesday, Osasuna condemned the insults.