Serie A Will Continue To Bury Its Head In The Sand With Racism — As It’s Always Done

Here we go again, again.

Italian football has once more found itself in the eye of a racism storm this week, and the end result is entirely – and sadly – predictable.

The Coppa Italia semi final first leg between Juventus and Inter had been a tepid enough affair, a cagey game between one side in great form but as aesthetically pleasing as Soviet-era architecture, and the other who is struggling for form in the league despite making it to the quarter final of the Champions League.

Nothing of consequence happened for 83 minutes. Juan Cuadrado finally give the game an injection of life with a well-taken goal, but Cuadrado’s night in the limelight wouldn’t finish there. Inter were – rightly – awarded a penalty after Juve defender Bremer handled the ball in his own box. The call outraged most of the Juve players, but Bremer’s shake of the head told the full story: the guilt was evident.

Up stepped Romelu Lukaku in the 94^th minute to take the penalty. The Belgian, who hadn’t missed any of his previous 17 attempts for Inter, wasn’t phased. He stroked the ball home and looked upwards towards the Juve Curva behind the goal, putting his right hand on the side of his head and his left on his mouth. The decibel level from the Juve supporters rose significantly.

Referee Davide Massa, one of the country’s best officials, took upon himself to give Lukaku a second yellow card, and thus sending him off. For what, exactly? For having the defiance to stand up to the racism he was hearing from Juve supporters behind the goal. Pushing and shoving then started with Cuadrado right in the thick of it. The Colombian and Inter goalkeeper Samir Handanovic were also sent off as chaos ensued.

Controversy is imbedded into the fabric of the Derby d’Italia, and games between these two have been frosty for the better part of 25 years, and relations won’t get any better in the aftermath of this game.

It hardly needs saying that Massa let the final minutes of the game get away from him. He lost control of the match and Lukaku’s second yellow should be retroactively revoked, allowing him to play in the second leg at San Siro on April 26.

Lukaku received universal support from athletes – in and out of football – around the globe. Yet what was highly predictable was the response from Lega Serie A and Juventus.

The usual platitudes were bandied about, Juve put out a statement via Twitter, stating they are ‘collaborating with the police’ on identifying those who abused Lukaku. The following day, they released a podcast with defender Danilo on the issue of racism; Serie A’s official Twitter account posted a Tweet with the usual need-to-be-seen-to-be-doing-something PR statement, saying ‘racism has no place in stadiums’.

“We are waiting to hit a breaking point before we act and do anything about it,” said Danilo on the podcast. “That’s where we need to change approach.” The breaking point was hit decades ago, and yet here we are, in 2023, and the issue is racism is still blighting Italian football.

And anyone who follows the Italian game even half-heartedly knows what will happen next: zero. Juventus, with the most modern arena in the country, should and could be able to utilise their state-of-the-art security system to identify and ban supporters pretty easily, yet the sad reality is there is a lack of willingness to do so.

Brushing it under the carpet has always been the mantra of Italian clubs, and even the players. Who could forget Leonardo Bonucci going against Moise Kean, his own team mate, for standing up to Cagliari fans when he was being racially abused in 2019?

When the issue of racism happens in Italian stadiums, it descends into whataboutery. Even amid the Lukaku incident this week, Juve midfielder Nicolo Fagioli could be seen on Instagram asking why the same outrage and support wasn’t given to Filip Kostic and Dusan Vlahovic when they were racially abused at San Siro.

Lega Serie A, meanwhile, will glance over the issue to focus on their primary objective, which isn’t to make the league more appealing to neutrals, nor a more family-friendly environment, nor to push through the reforms it so badly needs, nor to tackle racism. No, their chief concern is to flush out piracy, and the ‘stealing’ of content.

Of all the issues plaguing the Italian game, this is the hill Serie A officials continue to die on. Yes, piracy is an issue facing all leagues in the sport, but it shouldn’t be top of the agenda, nor anywhere close to it.

Little do they realise that Serie A’s TV deals continue to decrease every three-year cycle because of the myriad of issues they wilfully ignore every year. Building stadiums – the main issue killing the Italian game – isn’t something the league, nor the clubs, can control. Yet on every other issue they do.

But we all know how this story ends: nothing will happen until the next incident, when again there is uproar and condemnation around the world, the platitudes roll out, things quieten down, and on it goes, an endless cycle.

The league will bury its head in the sand, lumbering from one crisis to the next. But hey, as long as they root out piracy, that’s all that matters, right?