Players who cover their mouths during arguments may be expelled, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said on Sunday (1st).
The head of world football reacted to the incident involving Benfica’s Argentine player, Gianluca Prestianni, accused of making racist insults against Real Madrid’s Brazilian player, Vinicius Junior.
“If a player covers his mouth and says something that has a racist connotation, then he has to be sent off, obviously,” Infantino said in an interview with Sky News.
“It must be assumed that he said something he shouldn’t have said. Otherwise, he wouldn’t need to cover his mouth,” he argued.
“I just don’t understand: if you have nothing to hide, you don’t cover your mouth when you say something. That’s it, it’s that simple.”
“And these are actions that we can and must take to be serious in our fight against racism,” added the Italian-Swiss leader.
UEFA has provisionally suspended Prestianni until the conclusion of the investigation into what happened in the first game of the Champions League playoff between Benfica and Real Madrid, on February 17.
The match, which Real Madrid were winning 1-0, was interrupted for a few minutes after Vinícius told the referee that the Argentine player had called him a “monkey”.
The latter denied the accusations on his Instagram account, arguing that the Real Madrid player had misinterpreted what he thought he had heard.
Benfica’s coach, Portuguese José Mourinho, who initially stood in favor of his player, declared this Sunday that, if the accusations are confirmed, Prestianni will no longer play under his command.
