The RFEF Competition Committee accepts Real Madrid’s allegations of the red card Vinicius saw for slapping Hugo Duro after reviewing the video images, for which it decides to “leave the expulsion without disciplinary effect” of the Brazilian footballer.
Spanish football is under pressure after Vinicius suffered the umpteenth episode of racism this season at the Mestalla last Sunday, which has generated a wave of international outrage.
Frequent target of racist disqualifications since his arrival in the Spanish capital in 2018, Vinicius exploded on Sunday, after the insults received in Valencia, when several fans called him “monkey”, imitating the gestures of an ape.
Already in the discount of the game, Vinicius faced several rivals, including the Valencia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili and Hugo Duro, who grabbed the Brazilian by the neck for several seconds until he shook him off with a slap.
The match referee did not see what happened live and when he went to video arbitration, he was only shown the images of Vinicius’s slap, for which he was sent off, but not Duro’s previous action.
Normally, a direct expulsion in the Spanish championship supposes at least one game of suspension.
For the Competition Committee, it is proven with the video images that Vinicius was subjected to “chants that incite violence and constitute a manifest contempt for people” and that the referee made the decision to expel him after seeing an “altered” image and partial”.
Following this decision, Vinicius could play on Wednesday against Rayo Vallecano in a game on matchday 36 of the Spanish championship.
The RFEF also decided to close for five games the stands from which most of the racist insults to Vinicius came out.
The Spanish police arrested three young people in Valencia on Tuesday suspected of “racist behavior” last Sunday in Mestalla and four other people in Madrid as alleged perpetrators of having hung a doll with Vinicius’s shirt on January 26, coinciding with the match against Atlético de Madrid (3-1) in the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey.