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POPULAR ITALIAN SPORTS DAILY UNDER FIRE OVER ‘BLACK FRIDAY’ HEADLINE

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Italian sports daily Corriere dello Sport has been condemned by anti-racism group Fare for using the headline “Black Friday” along with a picture of players Chris Smalling and Romelu Lukaku to preview Friday’s (Dec 6) match between Inter Milan and AS Roma.

The match will see former Manchester United teammates Smalling and Lukaku on opposite sides.

The headline, in English, was posted in bold letters on the newspaper’s front page along with a picture of the two black players.

It drew criticism from Fare which retweeted the headline under the comment: “The media fuels racism every day. This is today’s edition of Corriere dello Sport.”

The newspaper could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Italian football has been plagued by racism and Lukaku himself was a victim when the Belgium forward was insulted with monkey chants when he went to take a penalty for Inter Milan during a Serie A match at Cagliari.

A veteran Italian pundit was dropped from one of the country’s Sunday night round table programmes in September after suggesting Lukaku could only be stopped by giving him bananas to eat.

Last month, the president of Italian club Brescia said on the sidelines of a Serie A meeting that striker Mario Balotelli’s problem was that he was “black”, and he was “trying to get whiter”.

The club said that the comments were sarcastic and aimed at Balotelli’s critics.

Last week, all 20 Serie A clubs signed an open letter saying Italian football had to do more to fight racism.

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Earlier this year, Englishman Smalling, who has joined Roma on loan from Manchester United, backed a campaign for players to boycott social media for 24 hours in protest against racism.

-Reuters

Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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