Sports
Both teams took to social media to display their disgust against Corriere dello Sport's headline.
Updated : Dec 05, 2019, 10:23 PM IST | Edited by : Snehadri Sarkar
Players facing racism is a very common issue in football especially when it comes to the Italian league, with UEFA and FIFA working very closely to get rid of this gargantuan issue from the beautiful sport.
Players like Moies Kean, Mario Balotelli, Kevin Prince Boateng, etc have all faced racist slurs during their time in the Serie A.
However, a popular Italian news outlet took things to a new level which left the footballing world very unhappy.
'Corriere dello Sport' on Thursday (December 5) published their front-page with a headline “Black Friday”, featuring Romelu Lukaku and Chris Smalling ahead of Inter-AS Roma's clash on Friday.
The sports outlet instantly started receiving heavy criticism with Chris Smalling's club, AS Roma, sharing their disgust on social media.
Roma's official Twitter account posted a tweet saying, “No one. Absolutely no one. Not a single soul. Corriere dello Sport headline writer,” and then posting the photo of the front page.
No one:
— AS Roma English (@ASRomaEN) December 5, 2019
Absolutely nobody:
Not a single soul:
Corriere dello Sport headline writer: pic.twitter.com/u2xpMLV5IH
Romelu Lukaku's parent club, Inter Milan, also took to Twitter to speak about the article.
“Football is passion, culture and brotherhood. We are and will always be against all forms of discrimination,” Inter's tweet read.
Football is passion, culture and brotherhood.
— Inter (@Inter_en) December 5, 2019
We are and always will be opposed to any form of discrimination.
#BUU #BrothersUniversallyUnited #NoToDiscrimination #FCIM
Federico Pastorello, Lukaku’s agent, even spoke about the headline and claimed he was “really ashamed to read” it.
“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,” he told Sky Sports News.
Pastorello also added how Rom was not at all happy with the headline, but “he’s strong enough to face it.”