The Juventus Women team’s Twitter account is under fire after a spectacularly ill-judged and racist photograph on their social media channels.
The picture appears to be a scene from their training centre, with a player putting a small red cone on her head in the form of a hat.
The problem is that she is also holding her eyes with her fingers to make them appear more Chinese, another sign of how backward many in Italy are about what constitutes racism.
Naturally, the tweet – complete with laughing emoji – received over thousands of complaints within minutes and was eventually deleted after 25 minutes when they realised their mistake.
The Juventus Women are the reigning champions of Italy and were one of the first major Italian clubs to set up a women’s team.
After another 20 minutes, they posted an apology, assuring it was “not meant to cause controversy or have any racial undertones.”
It does not explain how the gesture of pulling your eyes to make them look like a mockery of Asian faces had no ‘racial undertones,’ when it is literally the only point of the exercise.
We sincerely apologise that our tweet, which was not meant to cause controversy or have any racial undertones, may have offended anyone. Juventus has always been against racism and discrimination. #DifferencesMakeTheDifference
— Juventus Women (@JuventusFCWomen) August 5, 2021
Juventus has deleted the clearly racist tweet. Absolute disgrace anyone thinks this is appropriate never mind funny. We’ve approached the club for a response, it had better involve the words “sorry”, “out of order”, “grossly inappropriate” and “fired”. pic.twitter.com/Qrd9yhgutp
— Anton Toloui (@SkyAnton) August 5, 2021