In 1965, Malcolm X gave a speech to a local church in Selma, Alabama. In that speech, he addressed the Klu Klux Klan as such: “They put on a sheet so you won’t know who they are—that’s a coward. No! The time will come when that sheet will be ripped off. If the federal government doesn’t take it off, we’ll take it off.”

On February 17, Gianluca Prestianni was not wearing a sheet, but was a coward all the same. The 20-year old Argentine soccer player for S.L. Benfica covered his mouth with his canary-red jersey as he allegedly called Vinicius Jr. “mono,” Spanish for “monkey,” five consecutive times after the star Brazilian had celebrated after scoring a goal. The game was stopped for 10 minutes before play continued. Prestianni denied that he said “mono,” claiming to have used a homophobic slur instead. In response, the club has said that there has been a “defamation campaign” against him. “I heard it,” said Kylian Mbappé of the alleged racist abuse. “There are Benfica players that also heard it.”

Unfortunately, this is not a standalone incident for the sport—especially for Vinicius Jr. Since signing to Real Madrid CF in 2018, Vinicius Jr. has faced over 26 instances of racial abuse. While the regularity of these incidents has transformed him into a global figure of resistance against racial discrimination, it has also intensified the severity of the attacks.

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In 2021, Vinicius Jr. was having his best season since arriving in Spain when the first reported incident of abuse occurred while playing against FC Barcelona. The harassment soon evolved from single individuals to entire stadiums. When competing in away matches, the Brazilian was met with monkey noises and other racial epithets. The abuse has been directed at those who support him as well, with an 8 year-old girl receiving death threats for wearing a Vinicius Jr. shirt at the Metropolitano, Atlético de Madrid’s stadium. In January of 2023, rival fans hung an effigy of Vinicius Jr. from a bridge in Madrid. Although four people were arrested for this specific hate crime, a majority of the incidents have resulted in few repercussions.

The Union of European Football Associations, UEFA, implemented a three-step procedure in 2009 that grants referees the power to halt games if they are aware of a racist incident taking place and start an immediate investigation. If there is enough evidence, then the rule grants that the match can be abandoned and the aggressor be suspended a minimum of 10 matches. The procedure has been invoked only once, in 2024, by La Liga in the Spanish premier division.

With this tool virtually never brandished, racist incidents still occur. On January 16, a banana was thrown on the pitch, paired with racist chants outside of the stadium prior to kick-off. The case was met with condemnation from the league but no repercussions. Now Prestianni’s behavior has shown that such vitriol can even come from players without much consequence.

In response, Vinicius Jr. echoed Malcolm’s words over a half a century ago. “Racists are, above all, cowards,” he wrote on Instagram. “They need to put their shirts over their mouths to demonstrate how weak they are.”

UEFA’s investigation is ongoing, but Prestianni’s absence from the second-leg match is confirmed. The Argentine was handed a provisional suspension for the rematch on February 25, announced six days after the initial match.

Immediately after the final whistle, however, Jose Mourinho, the manager for S.L. Benfica, controversially inserted himself into the conversation. During the stoppage, Mourinho revealed that he told Vinicius Jr. that “when you score a goal like that you just celebrate and walk back.” Yet it was Mourinho who was sent off that match for unsportsmanlike behavior, after accusing the referee, Francois Letexier, of biased officiating. “When he was arguing about racism, I told him the biggest person in the history of this club [Eusebio] was Black,” said Mourinho. “Why didn’t he celebrate like Eusebio?”

His invocation of Eusebio was telling. The Portuguese soccer legend was born in 1942 within the segregated capital of Mozambique—a Portuguese colony at the time—and gained Portuguese citizenship only because of an exception made for migrants who showed prowess in the sport. But his new passport did not protect the then-18-year-old Eusebio from racism in Lisbon when he competed for Benfica. In 2011, Eusebio claimed that he would not react when called Black or “much more besides.” He wasn’t vocal about the treatment he received, and he was much more traditional in how he approached the game.

By equating calling out racial abuse with entitledness, Mourinho was asking Vinicius Jr. why he couldn’t just do the same. Mourinho not only blamed Vinicius Jr. for inciting the abuse he receives, but continued to place the docile and non-reactionary Black athlete on a pedestal.

“I’m a field Negro,” Malcolm X said in his speech. “If I can’t live in the house as a human being, I’m praying for a wind to come along.” He made a distinction between himself and the “house Negro” through how much a Black person polices themselves to prioritize the comfort of white people in positions of authority.

This dynamic is now playing out on the European soccer pitch. While players such as Eusebio would alter how they act—and ultimately addressed unfair treatment in ways that would not upset the powers that be—players like Vinicius Jr. experience abuse or basic mistreatment and do no such thing, afraid to openly critique a racist system.

For now, the ability to support the humanity of all players is in the hands of UEFA.“He’s never going to deserve something like this,” Mbappé wrote about Vinícius Jr. on X. “I can’t understand how there are people that tell me that he deserves this.”