This morning, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) announced that it had fined Valencia £39,000 and ordered that part of its stadium will be closed for five matches.
The development was after a section of Valencia fans hurled racial insults at Real Madrid’s Vinicius Jr during the two clubs’ match over the weekend.
Valencia have released a statement regarding RFEF’s ruling and they have labelled it ‘,unfair’,, especially the part where they have to close the Mario Kempes stand in Estadio Mestalla for five matches.
According to Valencia, this ruling also punishes innocent fans that were not involved in the Vinicius abuse and so they will appeal and fight this decision. The club also said that they have condemned and still condemn any kind of racism in football.
“Valencia CF wishes to show its total disagreement and indignation at the unfair and disproportionate penalty imposed by the Competition Committee on the club with the closure of the Entertainment Stand for five games.” Valencia’s statement reads in part.
It should be noted that the RFEF confirmed in its statement that indeed Vinicius Jr was subjected to racial abuse by some Valencia fans but the club said that the RFEF ruling is based on evidence that they (Valencia) have not yet seen.
“Valencia CF wants to publicly denounce that in this resolution of the RFEF Competition Committee, they show evidence that contradicts what the national police and LaLiga say. In addition, this sanction is based on evidence that the club has not been able to see and without giving us a hearing.
“Valencia CF has condemned, condemns and will condemn in the most energetic way any act of racism or violence. For this reason, we consider that penalizing and depriving all the fans who were not involved in these unfortunate incidents from seeing their team is a totally disproportionate, unfair and unprecedented measure against which we will fight.”
There have been calls from the footballing world for La Liga officials and the Spanish federation to handle racism in football with the strongest hand possible.
