A dramatic new twist has emerged in the growing controversy surrounding the clash between Real Madrid and Benfica, as Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 has publicly backed Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior with explosive accusations against Benfica youngster Gianluca Prestiani.<\/p>\n
Following Real Madrid\u2019s 1-0 victory in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League playoff tie for a place in the Last 16, Mbapp\u00e9 reportedly claimed that Prestiani directed repeated racist insults toward Vin\u00edcius Jr during an on-field confrontation. According to Mbapp\u00e9, the Benfica player called Vin\u00edcius \u201ca monkey\u201d five times,\u00a0 a statement that has sent shockwaves across European football.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrestiani should never play in the Champions League again. We must set an example for all children,\u201d Mbapp\u00e9 was quoted as saying. He added that he personally witnessed the exchange and described the incident as \u201cunacceptable,\u201d insisting that Vin\u00edcius Jr was clearly targeted and deeply affected.<\/p>\n
This version of events directly contradicts Prestiani\u2019s earlier statement, in which he denied making any racist remarks and claimed Vin\u00edcius had \u201cmisunderstood\u201d what was said. Prestiani also stated that he has never been racist and expressed regret over the threats he received following the accusations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A dramatic new twist has emerged in the growing controversy surrounding the clash between Real Madrid and Benfica, as Kylian\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":44246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4652],"tags":[4811,2521,3686,1823,1163,449,4810,4807,1315,4809,266,4510,2554],"class_list":["post-44245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-champions-league","tag-ban-prestianni","tag-benfica","tag-david-ornstein","tag-fabrizio-romano","tag-jose-mourinho","tag-kylian-mbappe","tag-monkey","tag-prestianni","tag-racial-abuse","tag-racist-comments","tag-real-madrid","tag-vini","tag-vinicius-jr"],"reading_time":"1 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44247,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44245\/revisions\/44247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}