The VinÃcius case, the insults suffered by the Real Madrid player in the Mestalla, has contaminated the Valencian political campaign of 28- M. All the Valencian political leaders yesterday unanimously and resoundingly condemned the racism of which the striker was a victim , but they also criticized that a climate of opinion has been generated, from certain media players in Madrid, which considers that all Mestalla fans and, by extension, all Valencians are complicit in the intolerable attitude of a group of fans, three of whom have already been identified, arrested and reported for hate crimes, thanks to the collaboration of Valencia CF.
Certain statements on national television programs and some covers of sports newspapers published in Madrid in which Mestalla and the Valencian players were blamed, and the Valencians after all, for these racist attitudes, have outraged the fans of Valencia and forced the candidates to vary their program to intervene in the controversy. The first to react were the aspirants of the left.
The Valencian president, Ximo Puig, stated that “the Valencian Community is not a racist community and it is very unfair that the problem is focused here”. “This is probably the most open society in Spain, the one that has always shown zero tolerance for racism and racists. To say that this problem is Valencian is false, because it is not at all”, he added. The PSPV and CompromÃs were warned yesterday of the risk of attempting, as has already happened with corruption, to stigmatize all Valencians because of the behavior of a few; in this case of a small group of fans.
In the same line, the socialist candidate for the Valencia City Council, Sandra Gómez, spoke out, who denounced that there is “an attempt to generalize an image of blaming the Valencian fans. There is no racism here. It is outrageous that it is intended to blame all the fans and all Valencians”. The mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó, was harsher, who after condemning the behavior assessed that “we perceive a certain centralist idea in this controversy, because problems of this type exist in all fields and all cities of Spain”. The CompromÃs candidate stated that “centralism, in sport and in so many other areas, is unfair and harmful for all; it is also bad for Madrid, so that no one is deceived”. The candidate of the Valencian coalition for the Generalitat, Joan BaldovÃ, and the president of the Valencian Courts, Enric Morera, spoke in similar terms.
His candidate for the Generalitat Valenciana, Carlos Mazón, said that he formulated a double condemnation: “Any racist behavior, but also any attempt to criminalize Valencian society”.
The popular candidate for mayor of Valencia, MarÃa José Català , pointed out that “we all know that when something affects Madrid it is magnified. We are against racism, which is in all fields, and we must be forceful, but to say that Mestalla is racist is to say that my family is racist”. At the same time, social networks were abuzz yesterday with messages against the framework created by some media from Madrid.
