Barcelona defender Dani Alves has
received support from Neymar,Italian Coach Prandelli,Female Footballer Marta
and Premier League players including Sergio Aguero, David Luiz, Oscar, Willian,
Nacer Chadli and Moussa Dembele following his reaction to a banana being thrown
in his direction by a Villarreal supporter during a La Liga game on Sunday.
The Brazil international picked up
the banana and took a bite before playing a key role as Barca fought back from
2-0 down to win 3-2 to keep their hopes of retaining the Primera Division
alive.
Following the game
Alves was backed by team-mate Neymar who posted a picture of himself with a
banana alongside the hashtag 'We are all monkeys', while his girlfriend Thaissa
Carvalho also took a photo of herself among a group of friends eating bananas.
Chelsea trio Oscar, David Luiz and
Willian posted a short video on Luiz's Instagram account including the hashtag
'zero discrimination'.
Later, Tottenham duo Mousa Dembele
and Nacer Chadli and Brazil international Hulk also posted pictures as they
joined the campaign alongside others who used social media to speak out against
the incident.
Barcelona released a statement
condemning the incident and urged other clubs to continue fighting in order to
eradicate racism from football.
Alves made light of the incident
following the game, saying 'I don't know who threw the banana but I want to
thank him. It gave me the energy to put two more crosses in for our goals.'
He later added: 'We have suffered
this in Spain for some time. You have to take it with a dose of humour. We
aren't going to change things easily. If you don't give it importance, they
don't achieve their objective.'
Alves has often been subjected to
racist taunts and called fighting racism 'a lost war' in January 2013, after
segments of Real Madrid's fans abused him with monkey chants during a match.See Video of the Incident and More Pictures below:
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