Italian national sports newspaper Corriere dello Sport was accused of fueling racism. Thursday’s edition of the newspaper came out of print with the front-page headline ‘Black Friday’, alongside pictures of Chris Smalling and Romelo Lukaku.
The former Manchester United teammates will be going head to head on Friday when Inter Milan and Roma face each other. Inter are currently holding the top spot in Serie A, while Roma are 5th, with 9 points separating the two teams.
Italian clubs disgusted with Corriere dello Sport
“The media fuels racism every day.”, stated the Anti-discrimination Fare network in a Twitter post.
Again on Twitter, both Inter Milan and Roma published statuses:
“Football is passion, culture, and brotherhood. We are and always will be opposed to any form of discrimination.”, wrote Inter.
“No one: Absolutely nobody: Not a single soul: Corriere dello Sport headline writer:”, tweeted Roma with a picture of the front page of the paper.
Italian football has been dealing with a lot of racism problems this season. Both Brescia striker Mario Balotelli and Inter goalscorer Romelo Lukaku have made allegations of being racially abused by fans during matches.
Last week, all 20 clubs in Serie A signed an open letter calling on “all those who love Italian football” to unite and try to eradicate its “serious problem with racism“.
And Corriere dello Sport was actually trying to address the problem with racism in Italian football in their article but received attention for all the wrong reasons.
