Three Valencia fans were sentenced to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to racially insulting Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior, marking the first conviction for cases related to racism in professional football in Spain.
The fans, whose names were not disclosed, will also be banned from entering football stadiums for two years and will have to bear all the costs of the legal proceedings.
They were detained after a Spanish league match between Real Madrid and Valencia at the Mestalla Stadium in May 2023. The match was briefly interrupted after Vinícius was insulted.
This incident generated a wave of support for Vinícius and triggered widespread calls to action from Spanish authorities and society at large.
Many viewed the episode as a turning point in the fight against racism in Spanish football, although Vinícius received further racist insults several months after the initial uproar that followed the incident at Mestalla.
The sentence found the fans guilty of a crime against moral integrity with the aggravating circumstance of discrimination on racist grounds.
The case was brought to court by the Spanish league, joined by the Spanish football federation, Real Madrid, and Vinícius.
Valencia had already banned the fans shortly after the incident at their stadium. However, no one has ever been tried in Spain for racial insults against a player, and many similar cases of abuse, like those faced by Vinícius, have been dismissed by prosecutors in the past.
Source: ABC News