Serie A teams have condemned the front-page headline of Italy’s top newspaper, Corriere dello Sport.
Former Manchester United players, Chris Smalling and Romelu Lukaku were on the front page of the newspaper with a headline: Black Friday which has sparked a lot of reactions.
Inter Milan and Roma have condemned Thursday’s front page of Italian newspaper Il Corriere dello Sport.
Reacting to the headline on Thursday, Inter took to its Twiter page and condemned it saying the game of football is passion, culture and brotherhood and it remained opposed to any form of discrimination.
Also reacting, the Rome based club via its English twitter page also condemned the headline and Fiorentina as well through its English Twitter account wrote: “No to racism, kick it out” with a separate post criticising the headline.
AC Milan also followed suit in condemning the cover, describing it as totally unacceptable. The club will not be silent seeing such casual ignorance on racism.
Defending the headline, the newspaper in a press release titled “The Eulogy of Difference” said denying the difference is the typical racist, the macroscopic, stumbling block of the anti-racists.
It added that for those who understood the meaning of ‘Black Friday, it was just a eulogy of difference that has its own pride and the magnificent richness of difference.
On his part, Lukaku’s agent, Federico Pastorello, in an interview with Sky Sports, also criticised the headline said he is ashamed of being an Italian with such a headline not to talk of reading the article.
While nothing that racism is still a big challenge in the country, Pastorello said it is unfortunate that the world of football is still in 1920 and its a culture problem.
It could be recalled that the 20 Serie A clubs signed an open letter last week, acknowledging that racism is a serious problem in Italy and sought ways to deal with it.
The Belgian has been a subject of racist abuse in Serie A this season. It started with a game against Cagliari with their supporters aiming monkey chants at him during their meeting in September.
Lukaku had linked up with the Serie A leaders for €80 million from Manchester United while his former teammate Smalling joined Roma on loan.
Written by: Oladipupo Mojeed
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