May 25, 2020 marked a before and after in the United States. That fateful day, George Floyd died in Minneapolis despite begging the policeman who had arrested him for buying with an allegedly counterfeit $20 bill. “I can’t breathe,” he pleaded several times breathlessly to Derek Chauvin while the police officer pressed his knee hard on the African-American’s neck until he suffocated. 8 minutes and 46 seconds of agony.
The images recorded by a video amateur went around the world, shocking a globalized society with the harshness of the country’s police abuse, hitherto permissive, and reopening old racial wounds still very latent among Americans. This case shocked all spheres of society and also the sport where Vinicius himself gave the go-ahead to his particular war against racism. The Real Madrid footballer was quick to join the cause and remember the late Floyd with a photo in which he joined his face with Floyd’s accompanied by the message “#VidasNegrasImportan”.
Now, after what happened in Mestalla, where the Real Madrid footballer suffered again – there are already 10 complaints since last season – racist insults from the stands, the Brazilian’s representative has not hesitated again to compare his case with the murder of George Floyd. “During today’s game between Valencia and Real Madrid, we witnessed scenes of widespread, intentional and already institutionalized racism, which are some of the most disgusting in the history of football,” begins the text published on Instagram by TFM Agency. , which represents the footballer.
“They don’t want the best if it’s black”
“Three years after the world was shocked by footage showing George Floyd being brutally restrained, today, we watched the live broadcast of an event where @vinijr had to be restrained during a cowardly, violent and unacceptable argument. This is just another reflection of what has been seen throughout this season in which it became clear to the world that they do not accept that their most decisive and relevant athlete is a young black man. LaLiga does not accept your role. The veiled message of the organizers of the championship to all this discrimination, it was for months a message to all Spaniards that seems to say that they do not want to have the best if they are black, finding the sympathy of thousands of intolerant and racist “he adds.
Finally, the representative comes to denounce that blacks, in Laliga, are only accepted if they are submissive and adapt and sentence: “That, Vini will never be. Neither on the field nor outside of them.”
A harsh statement that has not gone unnoticed on social networks and that has received endless criticism for the comparison between the Brazilian and Floyd. Many users consider it excessive and a lack of respect to compare the footballer’s situation with police brutality and racist injury in the United States. “Are they insulting all the blacks who play in the League? They don’t even insult the others from Real Madrid, Vinicius becomes a victim and now the agent wants to make Spain look bad and incidentally putting him in the same umbrella as George Floyd ” or “The Vinicius agency comparing this with George Floyd: He has to leave Spain NOW!, are some of the outraged comments that can be read on social networks.
