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Former Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale has become the latest player to call out La Liga officials after Vinicius Jr was racially abused at Valencia on Sunday (May 21). The Welshman sent the message via Instagram and urged them to take serious action to stop racism in football.
Bale has been vocal about racism in football and has backed teams who have walked out. He has already stated that he would do the same if he or his teammates were receiving racist abuse from the fans.
The retired footballer posted two photos with his former Real Madrid teammate, Vinicius Jr, and captioned it:
"Racism has no place in football or society! La Liga need to take serious and unequivocal action to stop this from happening. All my support to Vinicius Junior."
Bale and Vinicius Jr shared the pitch 27 times at Real Madrid but did not assist each other for a single goal.
Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti furious with La Liga after Vinicius is racially abused
Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti was furious with La Liga and Valencia fans after Vinicius Jr was racially abused at the Mestalla Stadium on Sunday. He believes that the match should have been suspended as it was the whole stadium targeting the Brazilian, and not just one person.
He took shots at LaLiga and Valencia fans when he claimed that he had never seen a stadium full of racists. He added that it was a heated atmosphere and said:
"They should have suspended the match then and there. It wasn't one person. It was a whole stadium that went crazy. I had never before seen a whole stadium being racist. Maybe I've seen a few people being racist, but I had never seen that from a whole stadium."
He added:
"There was a very heated and bad atmosphere and I asked him if he wanted to keep playing. I think it's bad that I even had to think about substituting off a player because the atmosphere was racist."
Further defending the Brazilian winger and highlighting that racism is a big problem in football and major changes need to be made, Ancelotti said:
"I should be taking players off if they don't play well or for rest, but never because they were the subject of racist abuse. What happened today I have seen other times, but not quite like this. This was unacceptable."
He added:
"This league has a racism problem. The problem isn't Vinícius. He is the victim. What should be done? I'm not the best placed person to answer that, but you can't play football like this."
Real Madrid ended up losing the match 1-0, with Vinicius Jr getting sent off in the final minutes for violent conduct. The Brazilian will now miss the rest of the season, due to the suspension.
