Vinícius on dancing after goals: ‘I am not going to stop’
BARCELONA, Spain: Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior called out the haters of his goal celebrations as racist and insisted he will keep on dancing.Spanish sports talk shows have been discussing the appropriateness of his celebrations, and a commentator on television said he should stop “doing the monkey.”Real Madrid criticized the comment on Friday, and Vinicius issued a video statement on Saturday in which the Brazilian eloquently explained that dancing forms part of his cultural expression, and cited other soccer players, both Black and white, who also have danced after scoring.“Repeat after me, racist: I am not going to stop dancing,” Vinícius said.“I was victim of xenophobia and racism in a single declaration, but none of this began yesterday,” Vinícius said over freeze frames of social media posts using racist language to insult him.The controversy also comes in the build up to Sunday’s always hotly contested Spanish capital derby in which Real Madrid visit Atlético Madrid. This week, Atlético captain Koke Resurrección, when asked what would happen if Vinícius danced after scoring, responded “There will be trouble.”Koke appeared to make the comment in jest, but it has been widely commented on.
