The National Police have arrested three young people this Tuesday in Valencia for the racist behavior that occurred last Sunday against the footballer VinÃcius during the football match between Valencia and Real Madrid, in Mestalla. This was stated by the Government delegate in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, who stated that the State Security Forces and Bodies are working from the moment “the unfortunate and reprehensible incident” occurred, and has already identified three people.
He has indicated that work continues with the videos both inside and outside the stadium and has asked “to let the course of the investigation continue” so that “this type of event does not occur again in a field like Mestalla”. whose fans, he has said, “do not deserve what happened on Sunday”. “At the moment, what we know is that there are three people identified, but the work of the National Police continues in progress,” said Bernabé.
Asked if they are considering taking some type of measure so that these things can be avoided, she recalled that the Higher Sports Council has already communicated that “it is starting to work, both with LaLiga and with the Football Federation, to start up a campaign against racism on soccer fields”. “There is nothing more antagonistic to the values ​​of sport and of Spanish society as a whole than racist and xenophobic demonstrations,” she pointed out.
Valencia CF, for its part, has confirmed the arrests through a statement in which it ensures that “it is cooperating with the authorities in their investigation to eliminate racism in the Camp de Mestalla”. Likewise, the club has expressed “its strongest condemnation and its emphatic position against racism and violence in all its forms and will act with the same forcefulness with all the people identified, applying its most severe measure: expelling them for life from the stadium”.
The statement also ensures that “in recent years Valencia CF has led the fight against racism, demanding the need to establish protocols against this scourge on football fields. And, in 2019, a fan was expelled from the stadium for life for making fascist gestures in an away game in the UEFA Europa League”.
A note that concludes with an energetic condemnation of racism and with a call for responsibility and rigor. “There has been a lot of confusion and misinformation in recent days. We cannot accept that Valencianism is labeled as a racist fan base. It is not true. We ask for respect.”
These decisions take place on the same day that four other people have been arrested for hanging a doll with VinÃcius’s shirt on a bridge last January in the preview of the Madrid derby between Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid. The detainees are four men between the ages of 19 and 24, three of them active members of the ultra group Frente Atlético, and all are accused of a hate crime, as reported by the National Police.
In line with the events that occurred last Sunday at Mestalla, the Royal Spanish Football Federation has dismissed Iglesias Villanueva, in charge of VAR in the match between Valencia and Real Madrid, for not showing De Burgos Bengoetxea the complete sequence in the expulsion of the Brazilian striker.
