Juventus get a game of half-stadium ban for racial abuse of Chelsea loanee Romelu Lukaku
Juventus receive a partial stadium ban for a game after racial abuses were aimed at loaned out Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku, who is currently at Inter Milan.
Lukaku scored a last-minute equaliser for Inter against Juventus in Turin in the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final on Tuesday and celebrated by making a gesture towards the Juve fans who were racially abusing him.
While the Belgian did not do anything wrong and only responded to the abuse he was receiving, the referee thought it was provoking the crowd and handed him the second yellow card.
There was a massive scuffle as a result of that and we saw Juan Cuadrado and Samir Handanovic also getting sent off. A lot of players came in support of Lukaku, including the young superstar Kylian Mbappe.
Juventus are working with the police to identify the ones that abused Lukaku. They must be caught and given life bans from attending all football games.
The events of Tuesday were just frightening, to say the least. The matter was made worse by the referee, who thought it was right to punish Lukaku rather than silencing the people who were hurling abuse at him.
We are in 2023 now and racism remains a deep-rooted issue in most countries. Italy has a history of being backwards in this, and what happened in Turin has not helped matters in any way shape or form.
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We can only hope that the Belgian is alright and is not perturbed by this. From a footballing view, it remains to be seen whether he will be back playing for Chelsea once his loan spell ends in the summer, or make a permanent move away from the Blues. The new manager at our club may have a word on this.