Accusations of racism in football: the Juan Jesus vs Acerbi case
With official press release no. 198 of 26 March 2024, the Lega Calcio Serie A made public the decision of the Giudice Sportivo (Sports Judge) regarding the well-known situation involving the players Juan Jesus of Napoli and Francesco Acerbi of Inter.
The facts date back to the Inter v. Napoli championship match played on 17 March last year and ended with a 1-1 draw. During the match, the Napoli player caught the match director's attention by accusing the Inter player of racially abusing him.
In light of the match director's report, the FIGC Federal Prosecutor's Office, appointed pursuant to Article 50 of the FIGC Sports Justice Code, carried out an additional investigation, hearing from the referee and those directly involved and acquiring some match footage as well as the excerpt of the recording of the communications between the referee and the VAR Room.
The proceedings put in motion ex officio before the National Sports Judge (competent according to Articles 64.2 and 65 lett. a of the FIGC Sports Justice Code) were aimed at verifying the possible violation of Art. 28 of the FIGC Sports Justice Code, entitled "Discriminatory Behaviour." The Code states that "Discriminatory behaviour is any conduct which, directly or indirectly, involves offence, denigration or insult for reasons of race, colour, religion, language, sex, nationality, origin, including ethnic origin, personal or social condition or which constitutes ideological propaganda prohibited by law or in any case advocating discriminatory behaviour. A player who commits an offence, as referred to in paragraph 1, is liable to disqualification for at least ten match days or, in the most serious cases, to disqualification for a fixed period of time and to the sanction set out in Art. 9, paragraph 1, letter g) as well as, for the professional sector, a fine ranging from 10,000.00 to 20,000.00 euros".
At the outcome of the proceedings, the Sports Judge did not apply the sanctions provided for by Article 28 of the Sports Justice Code against the Inter player. In essence, the Judge, although it is not disputed that following the clash between the two players some offensive words were uttered by Francesco Acerbi towards Juan Jesus - as, among other things, this was admitted by the offender himself - did not consider the discriminatory content of such remarks to be proven. In fact, no external evidentiary support in the form of video, audio or testimonies was deposited in the files that could actually prove the discriminatory nature of the words uttered by the Milan team player.
In its ruling, the Sports Judge expressly stated that discriminatory conduct, especially when referring to a person's race, skin colour or religion, must be sanctioned with the utmost severity but, at the same time, clarified the need "that the imposition of such severe sanctions be correspondingly assisted by even the slightest evidence, or at least by serious, precise and concordant evidence in order to reach a reasonable certainty in this regard (Federal Court of Appeal, SS.UU, n. 105/2021)".
In this case, according to the judge, proof of the offence was reached but the only basis to support the racial intent was the testimony of the Napoli player.
Following this pronouncement, Juan Jesus made it known that he did not want to continue the dispute, renouncing recourse to ordinary justice to protect his image.
