Vinícius Júnior declared that “racists are above all cowards [who] need to put their shirts in their mouth to demonstrate how weak they are” and attacked the failure of the referee to act after he was allegedly abused by Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni during Real Madrid’s 1-0 win in Lisbon. The Brazilian was seemingly minded to walk off and the Madrid coach, Álvaro Arbeloa, said that they would have joined him, although they did eventually play on after a 10-minute delay. Kylian Mbappé said afterwards that Prestianni should not be allowed to play in the Champions league again.
Vinícius had run to the referee, François Letexier, when Prestianni said something to him after celebrating the only goal of the night on 50 minutes. Prestianni covered his mouth as he spoke but Mbappé later backed the Brazilian’s accusation that the word used had been “mono” or monkey. The referee performed the gesture that confirmed that he was activating the anti-racism protocol and the game but following conversations between players, managers and officials the two teams did eventually play on.
“Racists are above all cowards. They need to put their shirts in their mouths to show how weak they are. But they have by their side the protection of others who, theoretically, have the obligation to punish,” Vinícius wrote in a post on social media. He lamented what he called “a poorly executed protocol that served no purpose” and added: “I don’t like appearing in situations like this, especially after a great victory when the headlines should to be about Real Madrid, but it’s necessary.”
“[Prestianni] called Vinícius a monkey five times, I saw it,” Mbappé said. “I cannot let things like this go. He’s a young player, how can you say things like that on a football pitch? We were going to go, that was the team’s decision. I don’t know what happened and then we came back. This type of person is no colleague, he shouldn’t play the Champions League again.”
“You have to ask the Benfica player what he said,” Arbeloa said. “We all deserve a response to that question. We have to be totally intolerant of racism; we cannot allow things like this to happen on the pitch in 2026. I have no reason not to believe Vinícius.” Asked what he had said to his player and whether there had been a chance that Madrid refused to play on, Arbeloa said: “I told him that whatever he decided, we would be at his side. We will fight together always. The referee said he hadn’t heard anything and that in that situation he can’t do anything. Whatever Vinícius had decided, we would have done. We cannot tolerate this.”
José Mourinho, the Benfica head coach, said: “I spoke to Álvaro [during the stoppage] before I understood what the problem was, just to say: ‘This guy scores a goal that’s out of this world, why does he being stupid in the corner?.’ Then later when I realise, [and] it seems Vinícius doesn’t want to play, we were talking about [whether] we play again. I want to try to be more balanced than Arbeloa and Mbappé. I do not want to say that Vinícius is a liar and nor do I want to say that my player is an incredible boy. They have decided to go their way, their perspective; I don’t want to go there. I said to Vinícius [at first]: you scored a goal that was out of this world, why do you celebrate like this? Why not celebrate like Di Stéfano, Pelé, Eusébio, just with the happiness of being a player from another world?”
