In the dispute for the Ballon d’Or, a prize given by the magazine France Football for the best player of the season, the Manchester City player, Rodri, won the award by a difference of 41 points from Vini Jr., who came in second.
The winner is decided by 100 journalists from FIFA’s 100 top-ranked member nations. Each journalist makes their top 5 picks from the 30-player list, and each ranking earns a different number of points and value. The player who gets more points wins the prize.
This year’s ceremony was all over the papers for one specific reason. Most people who work with soccer, such as journalists and players, knew that the 2024 Ballon d’Or winner should be Vini Jr., which did not happen. But why is that? Well, considering statistics, there is no viable explanation.
In the 2023/24 season with Real Madrid, Vini won both La Liga and the Champions League. Real did not lose a single game this season in either competition with him in it. He scored twice in the first match of the UCL semifinals against Bayern Munchen. In the final, he scored the second goal to give Real Madrid its 15th Champions League title.
Rodri, on the other hand, won the Supercopa de España scoring a hat trick against Barcelona in the semifinal, a fourth-consecutive premier league trophy, the UEFA Super Cup, and the Club World Cup. One of his peaks of the season was winning Euro 2024 with Spain, even not being their best player in the competition.
With all that being said, it is necessary to consider the weight of each competition and how each player contributed to getting to the trophy. Is there something else, though?
2021
The first notified racism case against Vini Jr. happened on October 24th, 2021. On that day, he played a game against Barcelona, Real Madrid’s rival, in Camp Nou and won. After the match, one of Barcelona’s supporters was racist towards Vini. The authorities were notified, but the case was suspended because they could not find the aggressor.
2022
In March, in a game against Mallorca, Vini scored one of the goals that guaranteed Real’s win and heard racist slurs from the other team’s supporters. The authorities were notified about the incident and the case was, again, suspended. The excuse was that they didn’t think it was a hate crime. Months later, the captain of Mallorca accused Vini of teasing other teams with his dances and using the “racism card” as an excuse to do so.
In September, Atletico de Madrid’s supporters were caught calling Vini a “monkey” before a match against Real Madrid. The authorities were notified but thought that the provocations were a part of the sport’s rivalry and that the racist slurs did not go on for too long. In that week, the president of the Spanish Association of Player’s Entrepreneurs said that Vini should stop doing “monkey things” and that if he wanted to dance he should go to Brazil’s sambadrome.
In December, in a match against Valladolid, Vini wasn’t even playing and, by celebrating a teammate’s goal in front of the other team’s supporters, he was attacked with racist slurs. For the first time, the authorities were notified and did something. A fine of 4000 euros was applied and the supporters involved were banned. Vinicius criticized La Liga for not doing anything against racism and the president, Javier Terbas, answered that they do fight against racism, and that is regrettable that he would say the opposite.
2023
2023 was the hardest year for Vini in Real Madrid. Already in January, he had to deal with one of the worst hate crimes yet. Some Atletico de Madrid’s supporters hang, on a bridge, a doll dressed as him. The hanged doll had hate messages written all over it. The incident went viral and the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and both Real Madrid and Atletico de Madrid posted notes saying that they did not agree with the incident. The #BailaViniJr hashtag was all over the internet.
In February, Vini was the victim of two hate crimes. The first one was in a game against Mallorca, where a supporter attacked him with racist slurs. The man was identified and banned from games in the stadium. The second one was in a game against Osasuna, where he was attacked by racist slurs during the minute of silence for the victims of the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.
In March, he went through two more incidents. In a match against Betis, Vini was called a “monkey” by supporters. La Liga sent the case to the authorities. In a game against Barcelona, Vini was attacked with racist slurs by supporters. It was the second time Barcelona’s supporters were reported for attacking him. La Liga reported the insults to the instruction court of Barcelona. That was the eighth complaint made by La Liga to the authorities about racist abuse against Vinicius Junior.
In May, before a match against Valencia, some supporters were caught singing songs calling Vini a “monkey”. During the game, the player confronted Valencia’s supporters who were calling him names in the stands. The referee stopped the match for five minutes and, when it started again, he showed Vini a red card, being sent off the match. After the game, Vini criticized La Liga but was told wrong by the president.
Vinícius Jr. battles every day for respect. Even after all these incidents and almost nothing being done, he still fights for his dream. The institution is not used to having someone as strong as him questioning them, which angers them. After all, was Rodri a better player than Vinicius or does he suit the institution better?
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The article above was edited by Clarissa Palácio.
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