LaLiga requests greater powers to punish racism following Vinicius Jr incidents

LaLiga will request greater jurisdiction to punish clubs whose fans are guilty of racist abuse after feeling “powerless” at the lack of current sanctions in the wake of the latest Vinicius Junior incident.

The Spanish league is engulfed in a racism scandal after Real Madrid forward Vinicius was allegedly subjected to racist chants during Sunday’s game at Valencia and later claimed it was an example of “continuous episodes spread across several cities in Spain”.

LaLiga, according to the country’s law, can currently only identify and report incidents, and punishment is rarely handed out.

A cada rodada fora de casa uma surpresa desagradável. E foram muitas nessa temporada. Desejos de morte, boneco enforcado, muitos gritos criminosos… Tudo registrado.

Mas o discurso sempre cai em “casos isolados”, “um torcedor”. Não, não são casos isolados. São episódios… pic.twitter.com/aSCMrt0CR8

— Vini Jr. (@vinijr) May 22, 2023

Now it wants legislation changing so that it has the power to impose punishment such as forcing games to be played behind closed doors or financial penalties.

It said in a statement: “LaLiga will request more sanctioning powers, with the aim of being more agile and effective in the fight against violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sport, where LaLiga has been leading the identification and reporting of such behaviour in football stadiums for years, but feels powerless when observing how its reporting ends.

“Despite its intense and continuous fight against violence and racism to the full extent of its powers (currently, according to Spanish legislation, limited to identifying and reporting the facts that occur), LaLiga feels tremendous frustration at the lack of sanctions and convictions by the sports disciplinary bodies, public administrations and jurisdictional bodies to which it reports.

“Faced with this serious situation, in the coming days LaLiga will formally request the amendment of Law 19/2007 of July 11, against violence, racism, xenophobia and intolerance in sport and Law 39/2022 of December 30, on sport.

“The purpose of the proposal is to request that LaLiga may exercise disciplinary authority over incidents of this type which occur in matches of the professional competition, so that the disciplinary bodies of LaLiga may proceed to sanction them, among other things, with the total or partial closure of the sports venue, the prohibition of access to it in the case of members/fans and the imposition of financial penalties, without prejudice to the adoption of provisional or precautionary measures that may be appropriate, depending on the nature and seriousness of the incidents.