An Italian TV pundit has been immediately suspended after making racist comments on-air about Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku.
Luciano Passirani of TopCalcio24, was suspended shortly after making a banana comment directed at the former Manchester United forward on Sunday.
The footage below is of course in Italian, but his words translated in English reads, “I don’t see any other player in Italy now like Lukaku. I really like him, the only way to stop him is to say, Here are ten bananas that you can eat.”
An Italian Pundit said Lukaku is almost impossible to out muscle and the only way you can do it,is by maybe handing him 10 bananas to distract him. Lmaoooooo WTF?? pic.twitter.com/BCN2c48AnO
— UnitedWasDopeOnce (@DopeWas) September 15, 2019
Earlier this month, Lukaku was targeted with monkey chants by Cagliari fans with Serie A’s disciplinary judge yet to decided whether or not the club should be punished.
Cagliari said they were committed to “annihilating one of the worst plagues that affects football and our world” and that they were in “full solidarity” with the player and that they will “identify, isolate and ban” the “ignorant individuals whose shameful actions and behaviours are completely against the club’s values.”
In a statement after the incident, Lukaku said: “Many players in the last month have suffered from racial abuse… I did yesterday too.
“Football is a game to be enjoyed and we shouldn’t accept any form of discrimination that will put our game in shame.
“I hope the football federations all over the world react strongly on all cases of discrimination.
“Social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) need to work better as well with football clubs because every day you see at least a racist comment under a post of a person of colour. We’ve been saying it for years and still no action.”
“Ladies and gentlemen it’s 2019 – instead of going forwards we’re going backwards and I think as players we need unity and make a statement on this matter to keep this game clean and enjoyable for everyone.”
Programme director Fabio Ravezzani said, despite Passirani’s “immediate apologies” that “he could no longer participate in our broadcasts”.
He continued: “Mr Passirani is 80 years old and to compliment Lukaku he used a metaphor that turned out to be racist.
“I think it was a terrible lack of momentary lucidity.
“I cannot tolerate any kind of errors, even if momentary.”
Fans came across Passirani making a racist comment towards Romelu Lukaku, so they took to express their shock and outrage at what they were seeing – see what they wrote on the next page.
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