Benfica's Gianluca Prestianni banned for anti-gay slur after Vinicius Junior racism row

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Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

Benfica's Gianluca Prestianni has been given a six-match suspension for using an anti-gay slur in a melee with Real Madrid's Vinicius Junior.

During the first leg of a Champions League playoff tie between Real Madrid and Benfica in February, Prestianni and Vinicius Junior got into a confrontation which resulted in the Argentine being accused of making racist remarks towards his opponent.

The scrap between the players happened after Vinicius Junior opened the scoring with a stunning finish into the top right corner.

He made his accusations known to the referee, who stopped the match in line with UEFA's new racism protocol. Prestianni covered his mouth while speaking to Vinicius but both the Brazilian and team-mate Kylian Mbappe insist racial slurs were used.

The Argentine told a UEFA investigation committee that he was innocent of using racial terms but did use a homophobic slur when speaking to Vinicius Junior.

Prestianni received a provisional ban for the second leg, which Real Madrid would go on to win to progress to the last 16 of the tournament. That counts towards his six-match ban, while three of the games in his ban have been suspended for three years.

So, he will actually only have to sit out two further games for the Portuguese giants.

"Sport Lisboa e Benfica announces that it has been notified by UEFA of the sanction imposed on the player Prestianni for using anti-gay language during the Benfica v Real Madrid match," Benfica said in a statement.

"The player Prestianni has been handed a six-match ban, three of which are suspended for two years. Of the three-match effective ban, one has already been served and the remaining two must be served in UEFA matches or Argentina national team matches in a FIFA context."

Real Madrid would go on to eliminate Benfica from the Champions League but they could only reach the quarter-final stage themselves as they were recently defeated over two legs by Bayern Munich.

Benfica head coach Jose Mourinho previously said Prestianni would never play for the club again if found guilty of racism. However, the iconic manager caused controversy in the immediate aftermath of the incident when he suggested Vinicius Junior catalysed the confrontation by celebrating his goal too much.

The former Real Madrid boss was asked if the match-winner had incited the crowd and said: “Yes. I believe so.

“It should be the crazy moment of the game, an amazing goal. Unfortunately he was not just happy to score that astonishing goal. When you score a goal like that, you celebrate in a respectful way.

“I told Vinicius, when you score a goal like that you just celebrate and walk back. When he was arguing about racism, I told him the biggest person in the history of this club, Eusebio, was black.

“This club, the last thing that it is, is racist. If in his mind there was something in relation to that, this is Benfica.

“Vinicius and Prestianni told me different things. But I don't believe in one or another. I want to be an independent.”

What are UEFA's rules?

UEFA has determined that using racist language and using homophobic language are worthy of a similar ban.

"Any entity or person subject to these regulations who insults the human dignity of a person or group of persons on whatever grounds, including skin colour, race, religion, ethnic origin, gender or sexual orientation, incurs a suspension lasting at least ten matches or a specified period of time, or any other appropriate sanction," the regulations say.

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