Vinícius Júnior Says Racism Is ‘Normal’ in Spanish Soccer

Vinícius Júnior has had enough.

The Real Madrid forward, a magnet for racist chants from the stands in Spanish stadiums for the past two seasons, took to social media after the latest attack against him on Sunday, when he was called a monkey by fans in Valencia. This time, he took aim not only at his abusers but also at Spain itself.

“It wasn’t the first time, nor the second, nor the third,” Vinícius Júnior wrote in a post on his Twitter and Instagram accounts. “Racism is normal in La Liga. The competition thinks it’s normal, the federation does too and the opponents encourage it.” Spain, he said, was becoming known in his native Brazil “as a country of racists.”

On Sunday, Vinícius Júnior was met by fans chanting the word “mono” — monkey — before he even stepped off the Real Madrid bus outside the Mestalla stadium in Valencia. The match was briefly halted in the 71st minute as he pointed out some of his abusers to the referee, and an antiracism statement — part of a league protocol for such incidents — was read to the crowd over the stadium loudspeakers. By the end, though, it was Vinícius Júnior who was cast as the villain: He received a red card in the dying minutes of injury time after scuffling with an opponent who had charged at him.

Real Madrid said it believed the abuse directed at its player qualified as a hate crime under Spanish law, and the club said it had filed a complaint with the relevant authorities demanding an investigation. “We have a serious problem,” the president of Spain’s soccer federation acknowledged Monday, calling racism in the nation’s stadiums an issue “that stains an entire team, an entire fan base and an entire country.”

Bouts of racial abuse echoing through the stands in Spanish soccer stadiums are not uncommon or new, but they have become particularly pointed toward Vinícius Júnior, who has emerged as one of the league’s marquee players since the departures of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.