Vinicius Junior says ‘racists are cowards’ as Gianluca Prestianni denies alleged abuse

Real Madrid defender Trent Alexander-Arnold said the harassment allegations against teammate Vinicius were “a disgrace to football”.

Alexander-Arnold said: “What happened is a disgrace for football and overshadowed the performance as well as a magnificent goal.”

“Vini has been exposed to this several times throughout his career. It’s a shame to ruin a night like this for our team.

“There is no place for this in football or society. It’s disgusting.”

Former Real Madrid midfielder Clarence Seedorf, who works as an expert on Amazon Prime, said Mourinho “made a huge mistake in justifying racist abuse”.

“I think it’s still emotional,” the Dutchman said.

“When Vinicius provokes you, he says it’s okay to be racist, and I think that’s very wrong.

“We must never, ever justify racist abuse. Vinicius is fed up with this unfair behavior of people. I know Mourinho will agree with me, but unfortunately he overexpressed himself a bit.”

Former England and Arsenal forward Theo Walcott, who worked with Seedorf, also condemned Mourinho’s comments.

“I’m pretty calm and collected and I’m not someone who gets angry very often,” Walcott said.

“I love everything Jose Mourinho has done in football, but he made a bad decision. Maybe it was the one night we shouldn’t have heard from him, the one night he shouldn’t have appeared in front of the cameras.”

In his speech to CBS, former Arsenal and France forward Thierry Henry talked about his experiences of racist harassment during his playing career.

“I can understand what Vinicius Junior is going through. This has happened to me many times on the field. Sometimes you feel alone because it will be your word against his, because we don’t know what he said,” Henry said.

“He put his shirt over his mouth. He already looks suspicious because he didn’t want people to see what he was saying.”

“Let’s see what a great man Prestianni is; tell us what he said.”