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Italian sports newspaper accused of racism over Black Friday headline

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Corriere dello Sport, the Italian newspaper, has been condemned by leading anti-discrimination campaigners after prompting another race storm in the country with an offensive front-page headline.
"Black Friday" was emblazoned across the page with photos of Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku and Roma defender Chris Smalling ahead of Friday night's match between the two sides at the San Siro.


The newspaper had been depicting the two former Manchester United teammates as figureheads for the match, but campaigners reacted with horror at the "ignorant" headline.

"What a season for Italian football," said Troy Townsend, of Kick It Out. Fare, the anti-discrimination charity that works with Uefa, said the splash was an example of how the "media fuels racism every day".

Smalling’s club, Roma, also showed their disgust at the front page, tweeting: “No one. Absolutely no one. Not a single soul”, before the words “Corriere dello Sport headline writer” and a picture of the front page. Italian football has been battling against a number of racist incidents aimed at players this season with Lukaku met with monkey noises as he went to take a penalty in a win away at Cagliari earlier this season.

Mario Balotelli has also been targeted and he reacted furiously away at Hellas Verona when he heard abuse aimed at him, almost threatening to walk off the pitch.

The Italian television media has also been drawn into the spotlight, with elderly television commentator Luciano Passirani saying on-air that defenders should feed Lukaku bananas. Passirani, appearing on channel TopCalcio24, said of the Inter Milan frontman: "The only way to come up against him is maybe give him 10 bananas to eat." The 80-year-old was immediately forced to apologise and the station's director, Fabio Ravezzani, has since insisted he will never appear on the network again.

Lukaku, who moved from Manchester United to Inter in the summer, has supported calls for players to walk off the pitch on hearing racist abuse. After he was abused by Cagliari fans, he released a statement the following day in which he claimed “we are going backwards” on dealing with the problem.

Last week all 20 clubs in Italy's top tier signed an open letter which called on "all those who love Italian football" to unite to try to eradicate its "serious problem with racism". Marcus Rashford, Paul Pogba and Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham have suffered abuse on social media this season in the Premier League.

Of Thursday's Corriere dello Sport front page, Italian journalist Matteo Bonetti described the article as "tone deaf, ignorant and with the usual racial undertones".


"Saying 'I’m shocked' would be a lie at this point," he added.

Inter did not reference the newspaper article, but tweeted: "Football is passion, culture and brotherhood. We are and will always be against all forms of discrimination."

City rivals AC said on Twitter it was "totally unacceptable to see such casual ignorance on racism" and they would "not stay silent on this issue".

Lukaku's Italian agent Federico Pastorello said he was "really ashamed to read" such a headline.

He said on Sky Sports News: "Being an agent we are trying to protect our clients from this huge problem (racism) because it's not only a newspaper but it's a problem you can breathe in the stadium, in social media, on the street."

Asked about the striker's reaction to the headline, Pastorello said: "For sure he is not happy about that but he's strong enough to face it."

Corriere editor Ivan Zazzaroni subsequently posted a statement on his paper's website, claiming the writer's intention was to celebrate the "magnificent wealth of diversity" in football.

Zazzaroni wrote: "'Black Friday', for those who want to understand it and can understand it, was only praising diversity, taking pride in diversity, the magnificent wealth of diversity. If you don't understand it, it's because you can't do that.

"It's an innocent article, perfectly argued by (journalist) Roberto Perrone, that has been made poisonous by those who have poison inside them."

Lukaku and Smalling have both impressed for their respective clubs since swapping Old Trafford for Italy this summer. Smalling is at AS Roma on a season-long loan - with the Italian club keen to extend - and Lukaku is at Inter on a permanent at the San Siro, where he has already netted 10 league goals.
 
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ROMhack

Member
In fairness, there is genuinely a bit of issue with race over there. Or at least, as I think it is, attempting to weaponise race in order to gain a competitive edge (ie putting players off).

As an example, Cagliari fans were recently outed for monkey chants against Internazionale's Lukaku. For some reason Inter fans responded by saying it was a form of 'respect' which seems very strange.

As noted in the OP though, the newspaper didn't seem to mean this derogatively. It was more drawing attention to race but maybe poor taste given what's happening in the stadiums.

But yeah, Italians do have their own way of doing things. It's a sensitive subject, rightly or wrongly.

(Edit: Balotelli vs Verona too)
 
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badblue

Gold Member
Why did they write it in english instead of italian is my question. I doubt this would have gotten much attention if the head line was "venerdì nero"
 

DKehoe

Member
Surprisingly one of the best defenders in the world Serie A this season.

I'd say we need him back, and I'd like that because I was always a fan of Mike, but we're stocked with defenders.

Yeh, it’s good to see him doing well. I’ve always thought he got more hate than he deserved at United. I know Solskjaer has said they will look to bring him back but Maguire, Lindelof and now Tuanzebe would probably still be ahead of him and Serie A seems to suit him so maybe staying at Roma might be the best for him. More English players should consider playing abroad and Smalling deserves credit for being willing to do it when others won’t. It seems he’s working his way back into consideration for the England team too after having been ruled out a while back.
 

ROMhack

Member
Yeh, it’s good to see him doing well. I’ve always thought he got more hate than he deserved at United. I know Solskjaer has said they will look to bring him back but Maguire, Lindelof and now Tuanzebe would probably still be ahead of him and Serie A seems to suit him so maybe staying at Roma might be the best for him. More English players should consider playing abroad and Smalling deserves credit for being willing to do it when others won’t. It seems he’s working his way back into consideration for the England team too after having been ruled out a while back.

For sure. His weakness was always passing and I think in Serie A he's mainly just asked to defend — which has always been his best trait.

Agreed he deserves credit for going abroad. It's gotta be better playing for Champions League chasing Roma rather than being stuck in a mid-table clash against Crystal Palace.

Plus those beautiful kits :messenger_smiling_hearts:
 
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Why did they write it in english instead of italian is my question. I doubt this would have gotten much attention if the head line was "venerdì nero"

Black Friday as in "the day after Thanksgiving". Amazon and similar website made it popular, just like Cyber Monday.

It's a pun.
 

badblue

Gold Member
Black Friday as in "the day after Thanksgiving". Amazon and similar website made it popular, just like Cyber Monday.

It's a pun.

Yes, I know.

I'm just questioning if the use of "Black Friday" in english is what gave this the attention. Everything else in that picture is in Italian and according to google translate "venerdì nero" is "Black Friday" in Italian.
 
Yes, I know.

I'm just questioning if the use of "Black Friday" in english is what gave this the attention. Everything else in that picture is in Italian and according to google translate "venerdì nero" is "Black Friday" in Italian.

I should have mentioned that I'm Italian.

It gave it international attention, probably, but it wouldn't have made sense as a pun otherwise.
"Venerdí nero" is something you would read as the title of a crime column on a paper, mostly related to some vicious crime or a serious car wreck that happened on a Friday.

Don't get me wrong, there is racism in Italy and I obviously don't support it, also I stay away from football so I'm not speaking as a fanboy either.
I honestly think it was just a pun with zero malice.
 

emmerrei

Member
Why did they write it in english instead of italian is my question. I doubt this would have gotten much attention if the head line was "venerdì nero"
You can find a lot of random english work used everywere. This one have sense to be writed in english because it's a pun between the 2 black guys and the "black friday", the sale event, who in Italy is targeted as "Black Friday". I'm not behind soccer so i don't know if it happened the same day, or it's just the period. Anyway, i don't see anything wrong, and infact no one talked about that. I find this "news" only on foreign site, in Italy somethign like that isn't even worth to be published as news. People know when it's racism and when not.
 
I'm going to amuse myself by boiling this down to "Black people receive positive headline coverage in the media - causes public outrage"
 
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