Palmeiras reached an agreement with the Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD) to avoid punishment for striker Vitor Roque for a homophobic publication.
Itatiaia confirmed that the São Paulo club will pay a fine of 80 thousand reais and that the player must make a new post against homophobia. In the coming days, the president of the STJD, Luís Otávio Veríssimo Teixeira, should approve the agreement with Alviverde.
With this, the number 9 is free to play in the final rounds of Series A of the Brazilian Championship.
Vitor Roque is Palmeiras’ top scorer in the championship with 16 goals scored and is fighting for the competition’s top scorer — he is in second place so far.
What happened?
The striker after Alviverde’s victory in the classic against São Paulo, on October 5th.
After the duel for the Brasileirão, Roque published a photo on Instagram of a tiger with a deer’s head in its mouth, but deleted the image minutes later.
The player was denounced by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD) and could face a sentence of five to ten games of suspension after being framed under article 243-G of the Brazilian Code of Sports Justice (CBJD), which deals with discrimination.
In a press conference for the Brazilian team, on Thursday (13), he .
“My mind is calm. I don’t see it being a suspension, an educational conversation I think is already valid. I also wanted to say that it wasn’t from that side that many are speaking, out of homophobia. It was just a joke”, he stated.
“At the time, I posted it without malice, but they are taking it elsewhere, and whoever thinks this, I apologize in advance,” added the Palmeiras player.
