The Bahia football club, a benchmark in the Brazilian League for its social campaigns, mainly to combat racism, inequality and homophobia, is facing a complaint this week for racial insult allegedly committed by one of its players against a colleague of the Flamengo.
Bahia "has the fight against racism as an absolute priority in its day-to-day activities" and, for this reason, since the incident, the club "has been mobilizing for a thorough investigation of all the facts," declared in an interview with EFE the club president,
Guilherme Bellintani
.
"This goes beyond a vision of merely presenting accounts to society, because we want to promote each event as an opportunity to strengthen the fight against racism and that is how we face a problem like this," he said.
The case dates back to last Sunday, when the team from the city of Salvador lost 4-3 on their visit to Flamengo de Rio de Janeiro, champions of the League in 2019, and with the result was on the edge of the relegation zone.
In one of the many discussions that took place during the match played at the Maracaná stadium,
Flamengo
midfielder
Gerson
accused Colombian
Juan Pablo Ramírez
of disparagingly saying "shut up black", a situation that led the former Roma player to file a complaint police officer in a police station.
"Fate placed us at the forefront of a complaint as serious as this," said Bellintani, who recalled that three years ago the tricolor team "began a very firm project to combat racism in football. The club was a pioneer when creating the Affirmative Actions Nucleus ".
Acting as an advisory and support arm for the club's internal and external campaigns, the Bahia Affirmative Actions Nucleus outlines initiatives against racial and gender discrimination, supports social inclusion programs and has been the link between the team and society during the pandemic due to the new coronavirus.
The club, in addition, always promoted messages of support to victims of racial insult in sport and in 2018 launched an institutional video in this regard with children from Salvador, which with 80.2% has the largest black and mulatto population among the 27 capitals of Brazil, according to official government figures.
Bellintani indicated that "El Indio" Ramírez "vehemently denies the fact" and that is why the club has "also the duty and obligation to analyze the contradictory, of the ample defense and presume innocence, but without forgetting that what the victim says in a case like this it is also very relevant. "
"It is a dilemma to conduct a process within the club that is capable of exemplary punishment, if racism occurred, but always allowing the broad defense that is a constitutional guarantee," Bellintani said.
Police case
Gerson formalized his complaint to the authorities about the alleged racist insult, one day after the Commissariat for Racial Crimes and Intolerance Crimes (Decradi) of the Civil Police of the state of Rio de Janeiro opened an ex officio investigation to verify if it proceeds or not the complaint.
"I spoke with Gerson, I listened to his position and how he felt, but I also spoke with Ramírez, the defendant, and we are doing everything possible to have the best possible decision, with a lot of balance, but with all firmness, as the dimension that the problem deserves, "Bellintani stressed.
For the leader, "it will not be this time that Bahia will flee from the responsibility it has already faced three years ago when it created the Nucleus of Affirmative Actions, the struggle is great and it is a moment of greatness to strengthen the anti-racist struggle and we face this with maturity ".
Ramírez, for his part, spoke in a video on the club's social networks in a message where he denies the facts and argues that because he still did not speak Portuguese, Gerson could misunderstand his words, he also accused forward
Bruno Henrique
, from Flamengo, of Call him in a xenophobic act of "shitty gringo."
"At no time was I racist with any of the players. Not with Gerson or with any other person," said Ramírez, who added: "I don't understand Portuguese very well" and, therefore, it was "misinterpreted". I would have said, actually, it was "hurry up, bro."
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