Monkey anti-racism campaign ‘a sick joke’
Serie A is being criticised as insensitive toward racism after installing a painting at the Italian football league’s headquarters featuring three monkeys to represent three different races.
While black players are regularly subjected to monkey chants in games, artist Simone Fugazzotto said his painting was meant ‘‘to show that we are all the same race.’’
The league is using the painting in its anti-racism campaign, and Fare, football’s leading discrimination monitoring group, called it ‘‘a sick joke.’’
‘‘Once again Italian football leaves the world speechless,’’ Fare tweeted. ‘‘In a country in which the authorities fail to deal with racism week after week Serie A have launched a campaign that looks like a sick joke.’’ The painting was made for last season’s Italian Cup final.
‘‘I immediately thought to paint a western monkey, an Asian monkey and a black monkey, because I would like to change people’s perceptions by my work,’’ Fugazzotto said.
‘‘My paintings fully reflect the values of fair play and tolerance. I use monkeys as a metaphor for human beings because the colour of our skin is not important.’’
Serie A chief executive Luigi De Siervo said the league’s commitment against prejudice was strong.
‘‘We know that racism is an endemic and very complex problem, which we will tackle on three different levels; the cultural one, through works like that of Simone; the sporting one, with a series of initiatives together with clubs and players, and the repressive one, thanks to collaboration with the police,’’ De Siervo said yesterday.
Racism has been a problem all season with offensive chants aimed at Romelu Lukaku, Franck Kessie, Dalbert Henrique, Miralem Pjanic, Ronaldo Vieira, Kalidou Koulibaly and Mario Balotelli. All of the players targeted – except for Pjanic, who is Bosnian – are black , and many of the incidents have gone unpunished.