The Barcelona basketball team has denounced the racial taunts directed at Nigerian player James Nnaji during their triumph over archrival Real Madrid in the Spanish championship game.
The incident on Tuesday occurs as Spanish sport struggles to deal with the widespread outcry brought on by racism directed at Brazilian football sensation Vinicius Jr. of Real Madrid. The 22-year-old Brazilian forwards denounced racial harassment he had experienced since arriving to Spain five years ago in the Spanish football league in May.
Spanish basketball was the focus on Wednesday.
“Barcelona strongly condemns the racist insults suffered by first-team basketball player James Nnaji before game three of the final,” the team said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The club expects a firm response from the ACB [Spanish basketball league] against any racial or verbal insults.”
Images from the WiZink center in Madrid, where Tuesday’s game was played, showed some Madrid supporters cursing at the Barcelona players as their team bus arrived.
“I want to talk about what happened here with James Nnaji. I think it’s regrettable. I hear a lot about Vinicius, and now it’s us who have to talk about what’s going on,” Barcelona basketball coach Sarunas Jasikevicius said later.
“It has to stop now. It doesn’t fit, I guess, with the values of Real Madrid and its supporters, and we have to be very angry about that,” he said.
The 18-year-old Nnaji played in the final for only eight minutes and 35 seconds but, according to Nigeria’s online media site Pulse Sports, played a “pivotal role” in his team’s victory.
After winning the first two games of the championship, Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 93-82 on Tuesday to earn the club’s 20th Spanish league title.
