Neymar was racially abused in match against Marseille confirms lip reader

Tanish Chachra | 20/09/2020

Neymar was racially abused by Alvaro Martinez in the Ligue 1 match between PSG and Marseille, lip reader confirms after studying footage.

PSG’s match against Marseille took an unpleasant turn with several cards folding out of referee’s pocket in the last few minutes of the game. One of the exclusions of the game was the world’s most expensive player Neymar.

Whilst marching out of the pitch, Neymar was heard complaining to the referee that he was racially abused by Marseille’s Alvaro Martinez, before the bout between both the teams.

In the latest update by the Esporte Espetacular, Neymar was called ” mono ” by Martinez, which in Spanish means monkey, as the publishing house gathered information by a lip-reader.

“We were not able, for example, to understand what he says before he spoke the word ‘mono’. But the word ‘mono’ was an excerpt that we had a consensus at the time I was doing lip reading work said Felipe Oliver to Esporte.

Marseille backs Martinez; Neymar punished

Neymar was later punished with a ban of two games by the French authorities for the red card. Though, in a video conference between league authorities and Neymar, the Brazilian forward has continuously maintained on his claim.

Neymar even went ahead to publicly criticize Martinez on social media. As of now, the French authorities are investigating the matter and will tell its verdict.

Meanwhile, Marseille has backed Martinez and deny that any wrongdoing or racist slur came out of Martinez. According to the club, the player received death threats.

The report further states, his uncle, in an interview in Spain, claimed that his nephew used the word ‘ silly ‘ – which in Spanish means “idiot” – and not ‘ mono ‘, in the discussion.

Post Edited By: Utkarsh Bhatla
Alvaro Martinez Marseille Neymar PSG

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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