Picture Credit: AP
It has not been a good weekend for Lazio and their fans. Firstly, they lost their Serie A clash to AC Milan the last weekend and now, the latter club has approached the Italian Soccer Federation’s prosecutor’s office to register a complaint against the Roman club about racist remarks from its fans. It is worth noting that Milan’s Tiémoué Bakayoko said he and fellow midfielder Franck Kessi, both of who are Black, were their main target.
Timou took to Instagram to narrate the story that unfolded during the game and said that he is proud of his skin color. He also added that he has full faith in his club to identify the culprits. “To some Lazio fans and their racist cries towards to me and my brother (Kessie). We are strong and proud of our skin color. I have my all confidence in our club to identify them,” Bakayoko wrote on Instagram.
Even though Lazio have been in trouble before as well for racism from their fans and have faced numerous stadium bans as well as fines, that seems to have no effect on the attitude of the club and their fans.
Football must be united in protecting our players: Ivan Gazidis
Milan CEO Ivan Gazidis also had his say on the particular incident. He asserted that it is their moral responsibility to report any form of discrimination and also added that football must be united in protecting its players in an uncompromising way. “It is our moral duty to report any form of discrimination involving our club. We want to once again confirm our commitment to avoid such attitudes in the future, by collaborating with other clubs and institutions to achieve a common goal. Football must be united in protecting our players in a decisive and uncompromising way,” said Ivan Gazidis as quoted by AP.
He further added that intolerance is not a problem created by football but it is surely affecting it. He showed his commitment towards scrapping racism from football and said that they would launch other initiatives in the coming days in this direction.
Talking about the game, Milan easily ran over Lazio and fetched a 2-0 win to start their Serie A campaign in style. Rafael Leao and Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored the two goals for Milan in the 45th and 66th minutes, respectively. Meanwhile, Lazio’s coach Maurizio Sarri was shown a red card and then a suspension after he got into a shoving match with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Lucas Leiva.