Luighi, Palmeiras' striker in the interview after the Palmeiras X Cerro Porteño match

By: Maria Eduarda Macieira (Grade 5)

Luighi is a striker of Palmeiras’ under-20 team and on March 7th, he was a victim of racism in the match against Cerro Porteño team, at San Lorenzo, Paraguay.

In the final minutes of the game, a Cerro Porteño supporter imitates a monkey in front of Figueiredo, number 10 of Palmeiras. After that, while Luighi, striker of the team, was being replaced, supporters of the other team (one of them was the same that did had racism act with Figueiredo) cursed and spat on him.

In interviews, the football player said that he talked to the policemen there and the referee, but they didn’t pay the needed attention. The match stopped for a while, but continued like nothing happened.

After the game, a journalist asked Luighi how the game was and how he felt about the victory, ignoring the fact that the football player was a victim of racism during the occasion. That question made him really angry and sad. Luighi answered, crying: “Really, are you serious with me? You are not going to ask about the racism act I just suffered? Until when are we going to deal with that? What they did to me was a crime. You are really asking about the game? What will Conmebol do about that? CBF?”

CBF started the movement hours after, connecting with Conmebol to resolve what would be the punishment for Cerro Poteño, referring the document to FIFA. 

The president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva posted on his social media defending that the punishment needed to be taken and that racism means the failure of humanity, indicating that FIFA, CBF and Conmebol needed to act on the subject.

Leila Pereira, Palmeiras’ president, tried to communicate with Conmebol too, without answer. But had the help of CBF to write a document asking for the exclusion of Cerro Porteño from the South American competition.

It’s not news that Brazilian sportive institutions have been requesting for more rigid positions about racism cases in football competitions.

Cerro Porteño sent a message to Leila Pereira, apologizing about the incident, saying that when identified, the aggressors would not enter any other Paraguay stadium. Conmebol published that the club would have to pay 50 thousand dollars and would have to do a campaign in social media against racist acts.

But Palmeiras and CBF took a stand saying that the measures taken were too “soft” considering the quantity of crimes involving racism in football matches nowadays and recently.

Conmebol has been working with the Observatory of Racial Discrimination in Football to find solutions. “Some countries just can’t understand why they are being punished. For them, it doesn’t have that gravity. Conmebol‘s role is to make clubs and federations conscious that, if in the legislation of the country (racism) isn’t a crime, in the sports community it is.”, said Marcelo Carvalho, the president of the institution (as this is a single quote, you don’t have to name it both before and after the quote).

It’s absurd that there are people that still disrespect black people and their histories. Like Luighi said, they are all there to learn and play, and no one has the right to criticize a player just because of his appearance or skin color. More rigid measures and punishment have to be taken for these racism cases to end, which are so common recently all around the world.

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