After racist fans taunted Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku in a match against Juventus F.C. on Tuesday, Roc Nation and its founder Jay-Z took out an ad simply stating, “Enough is Enough.”
Roc Nation, who represents Lukaku, took the ad in Italy’s daily sports newspaper, La Gazzetta dello Sport, condemning the racist incident in which some fans began to make monkey sounds when Lukaku had the ball.
“Dear Italy, Do better. Want better. Be better,” the letter, translated into English, begins.
“In professional [soccer], Black players have been subjected to hatred during professional [soccer] games. The hatred has displayed itself in the form of monkey chants, racial slurs, and banana peels tossed at the best players in the world, as the world watches, as the children watch, as the players’ families watch.”
“No one has faced any consequences for this heinous behavior. Nothing has changed. No action has been taken.”
This is not the first this has happened to Lukaku, he was also subject to the same behavior back in 2019 during a Coppa Italia semifinal match.
Roc Nation has called on the soccer community to end this racism.
“We call on the worldwide community of sports – players, team owners, artists, brands and all fans – to denounce this racist behavior and hold bigots accountable to a human standard. One which upholds decency, respect and compassion for others.”
“The first team is the human team. Let’s work together to cut racism out of the game, for good.”
It will be interesting to see if their pleas will be heard this time around.
About Stacey Mickles
Stacey is a 1995 graduate of the University of Alabama who has previously worked for other publications such as Sportskeeda and Saturday Down South.