Italian rugby team Benetton Treviso suspend player amid accusations of racism, Italian federal prosecutors to investigate

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Italian rugby team Benetton Treviso announced on Thursday that they have suspended a member of their squad after Guinean-born Italy international Cherif Traore received a rotten banana in a wet bag as a gift during a Christmas dinner.

In a statement posted on its official website, Benetton, along with the Italian Rugby Federation (FIR), said federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into the matter.

Benetton and the FIR have imposed a suspension on one team member pending this investigation.

In a now-deleted Instagram post from Wednesday, Traore detailed the incident and accused some of his teammates of laughing while opening the gift.

Traoré was born in Guinea but has lived in Italy since he was seven years old. He plays as an accessory for the northern club Treviso and for the Italian national team.

Later the same day, Benetton posted a video on their Twitter account with Traore, who said he had accepted the team’s apology, with the following caption: How often do you make a mistake and fail? offend a family member? plot.

Well, this time it happened in our family. Now what matters is that we understood the mistake and apologized.

World Rugby, the sport’s global governing body, said on Thursday it was following the case closely.

The United Rugby Championship, the league in which Benetton competes, also released a statement on Thursday revealing that they have asked the team to provide them with a full report into the incident and the action taken.

Racism and discrimination of any kind is abhorrent, completely unacceptable in society and completely contrary to the values ​​of the sport of rugby and the United Rugby Championship, the statement said.

Ellis Genge, a black England international rugby player, responded on Twitter to the team’s apology saying there had to be consequences.

Not well done, quite right, giving a teammate a rotten banana for Secret Santa isn’t a big deal and a simple apology will do, Genge wrote.

If there is no further action on this from Benetton then everything we have done for anti-racism rugby has been a tick box for most, he added.

Maro Itoje, another black rugby player from England, wrote on social media: Sending love and support to Cherif Traoré! No one should receive racial slurs!! It is difficult to understand that this story really happened. Shows us that there is still work to be done!

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