24th April 2023
Police in Turin on Monday said they had fined 171 Juventus fans and banned them from their stadium following racist chants levelled at Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku.
During the April 4 first leg of the Italian Cup semi-final between Juve and Inter Milan, Lukaku was subjected to monkey chants by some Juventus fans, in what his representatives called “hostile and disgusting racist abuse”. In a brief statement, Turin police cited “racist chants” during the semi-final. They did not provide details about the fines nor say how long the stadium ban would last.
Days after the match, the Italian Football Federation handed Juventus a one-match stand closure for the racist chants from “the majority of fans” in that section, but it was overturned on appeal.
Lukaku was suspended for one match after picking up two yellow cards, the second for a goal celebration in front of Juventus fans after his stoppage-time penalty that secured Inter a 1-1 draw.
The Belgian striker held up his finger to his mouth and told Juve supporters to “shut up”.
That suspension was revoked, however, by the FIGC after an angry backlash, allowing Lukaku to play in the second leg of the semi-final in Milan on Wednesday.
AFP
Editor’s Note
In our post on February 19, 2023, in a story ‘Woman burns self to death over failure to offset N70,000 loan’, we reported that a middle-aged woman, simply known as Mama Dada, set herself ablaze over her inability to pay back a loan of N70,000 she reportedly took from a microfinance bank, LAPO. We have since discovered that the microfinance bank referred to in the story was not LAPO Microfinance Bank Limited. We apologise to the LAPO Group for the error in the identification of the name of the said microfinance bank where the deceased took the loan. The mix-up in the name of the MFB is not deliberate.
