“There are problems of racism in football,” admits Infantino, FIFA president

“There are problems in football,” admitted Thursday the president of the International Federation Gianni Infantino, calling for “to be united to fight racism (...) and violence”.

“We must be united to fight racism. Vinicius (the Brazilian striker for Real Madrid, Editor's note) and others suffer from it. These attacks targeting them have no reason to exist. We must be united against the violence that exists in the world,” declared the head of Fifa during the congress of the South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) in Paraguay. “We need to act together with governments, teams, players. Going to a match must be a party,” continued Mr. Infantino, who spoke in particular in front of the Uruguayan and Paraguayan presidents Luis Lacalle Pou and Santiago Peña, but in the absence of their Argentine counterpart Javier Milei.

These three countries will host the inaugural meetings of the 2030 World Cup, before the rest of the competition takes place in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. Several football matches, particularly in Europe, have been further disrupted in recent weeks by racist incidents in the stands, which sometimes forced referees to interrupt matches. Frequently targeted by insults of this type in Spanish stadiums, Brazilian striker Vinicius recently burst into tears while speaking at a press conference about this fight against discrimination, for which a symbolic friendly match between Spain and Brazil was organized at the end of March (3-3).