Racist abuse hurled at AC Milan goalkeeper Maignan during match against Verona

In an ideal world, people would be able to play football without having to experience any kind of racism or bigotry. Unfortunately, these things still exist and despite increasing efforts to stamp them out, they can still make an appearance and negatively affect people. Case in point: a recent match in which AC Milan played against Verona.

Most football fans engage with the sport and its players in a positive way. They attend matches and keep up with the latest news from their favourite teams; some of them even practise online sports betting, hoping to make a bit of money from their bets. While only a minority of fans are abusive towards players, it’s still not acceptable.

Maignan’s complaint

Mike Maignan is a French professional football player who is currently the goalkeeper for both the French national team and Serie A club AC Milan. On Friday 20th December, he was playing for Milan against Verona at the Stadio Marcantonio Bentegodi in Verona when he experienced racist abuse.

After the match’s final whistle, he made a complaint to the referee, Livio Marinelli, that some Verona fans were racially abusing him. There wasn’t any chanting, though he did hear a few harsh, offensive words being shouted by a few fans in the stadium. This took place in the second half of the match.

Once the match was over, Maignan had a lengthy discussion with Marinelli, wanting to find out why the referee didn’t put a stop to the match when he knew what was going on. What Maignan wanted was for the protocol to be followed.

If the referee stuck to the protocol, he would have halted the game and there would have been an announcement that if any more racist abuse was heard, the match would be suspended.

It remains unclear as to why the referee didn’t follow the protocol. Perhaps he thought the abuse wasn’t severe enough to justify potentially postponing the match; or maybe because the match was in its second half, he thought there was no point in bringing it to a close. 

What’s clear is that Maignan was so affected by the shouting that he felt the need to speak to the referee. Others sided with the goalkeeper and acknowledged what he had experienced. In fact, after the match was over AC Milan published a message supporting Maignan on its social media; this included a caption that said, ‘Stop Racism!’.

Maignan and Verona fans

A previous precedent

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that Maignan has experienced something like this. In January 2024, during the previous season, he was playing a Serie A away match at Udinese when he experienced racist abuse. This time, however, there was chanting and it was more noticeable than during the Verona match.

It happened on 20th January and was so bad that the match was briefly suspended while organizers decided what to do. Within a few days, four Udinese fans were identified through video footage and suitably punished for what they had done. They were banned from Stadio Friuli (Udinese’s home stadium) for life and were banned from all Italian stadiums for five years.

It remains to be seen whether those behind the abuse on 20th December have been identified and punished. There’s no doubt that work is being done to find the guilty parties and ban them from future matches.

When will it stop?

Many football clubs take swift action to punish abusive fans. Things like lifetime bans from a specific stadium and countrywide bans may seem extreme, but punishments have to be harsh if they’re going to have an effect. People who hurl racist abuse at players have to face severe consequences.

Bans are an effective form of punishment because they remove the offending people from stadiums and they show other players what they will face if they’re abusive to players too. While the vast majority of fans never engage in racism, it’s clear that there’s still a minority who do. 

It takes just one person shouting offensive things to upset a player and disrupt a match. Naturally, clubs and organisations don’t want anyone to experience any kind of racism. Many of them actively promote anti-racism on social media and highlight the benefits of having diverse teams and fan bases.

Everyone should be able to enjoy the game without experiencing racism or any kind of abuse, whether they’re a player or a fan. Incidents like the two Maignan has experienced are examples of what should not be happening in football or any sport for that matter. Hopefully, incidents like these will become far less frequent and eventually non-existent in the future. 

Tags AC Milan Mike Maignan
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