It is a new rant from Mbappé, one more. In the wake of PSG’s victory on the lawn of Orléans, in the 16th final of the Coupe de France, the French striker took his phone to publish a message of support as much as a cry of anger, after the racist insults of which his teammate from the French team, Mike Maignan, was (again) the victim during the AC Milan match on the Udinese pitch. “You are very far from being alone Mike Maignan. We are all with you. Still the same problems and still NO solution. Enough is enough !!!!!!!!!!!! NO TO RACISM,” wrote the French striker on Twitter.
A few moments earlier, in fact, the Milan goalkeeper denounced monkey cries and racist insults uttered by Udinese supporters. After alerting the referee of the match, he and his teammates returned to the locker room, before resuming the match five minutes later. “What happened was when I got the ball for my first dismissal of the match, I heard monkeys screaming, I didn’t say anything. It happened again afterwards, I told our coaches and then the 4th referee. I said we couldn’t play in these conditions,” explained the French goalkeeper.
The FFF condemns, Infantino too
“I didn’t want to play anymore, I told everyone when I left the field, but we are a family, I couldn’t abandon my teammates,” he declared on the microphone of the platform DAZN. I was angry, not disappointed, because it’s not the first time I’ve experienced this. My teammates, the staff, everyone told me to stay strong in my head and give the right answer on the pitch.”
The French team joined its captain to support its goalkeeper. “You have our full support Mike Maignan. The FFF condemns in the strongest terms any act of racism,” wrote the French Football Federation on the Blues’ X account (ex-Twitter). FIFA President Gianni Infantino also condemned these insults and called for the perpetrators of racist insults to be banned from all stadiums, as well as to introduce an “automatic forfeit” sanction for clubs whose fans commit these misdeeds. , while similar incidents occurred in England on Saturday.
When will the measures to combat racism in football end?
Since his arrival in Italy, Maignan has already been the victim of racism, insulted in September 2021 by a Juventus Turin supporter. At the time, the former Lille player took up his pen to denounce this scourge of our societies, without finding any real response from the Serie A authorities. Despite awareness campaigns and sanctions going as far as behind-the-scenes matches closed, Italian football cannot get rid of the scourge of racism. Each of its seasons is punctuated by incidents of a racist or anti-Semitic nature. The problem is that by forcing players to return to the field after being insulted, or by sanctioning the team which decides not to return to play, football regulations only give racists a free pass. from all sides.
As Samuel Eto’o said in his time, “if colored players stand up one day and say, ‘We won’t play today,’ then a lot of people will lose money. And when you touch someone’s wallet, I can assure you they will find solutions. » We must hope that this umpteenth event concerning Mike Maignan allows a final awareness and that the football family in its entirety decides to sanction more firmly the lower fronts of the stands while protecting those who will choose, in the future, to leave the field and no longer return to play, as was the case during the Champions League match between PSG and Basaksehir in December 2020.