Madrid
Tuesday’s UEFA Champions League match was halted after Real Madrid forward Vinícius Júnior alleged he was racially insulted by Benfica player Gianluca Prestianni after he scored in a Champions League knockout match, NBC News reported.
After the goal, Benfica fans threw objects at Madrid’s players, angry with the goal and subsequent dancing celebration. Vinícius told referee François Letexier that Prestianni had called him a “monkey.” Prestianni covered his mouth with his shirt before approaching Vinícius and is denying the allegation of racial abuse.
After the match, Vinícius posted a statement in Portuguese on his Instagram story: “Racists are, above all, cowards. They need to put their shirts in their mouths to demonstrate how weak they are. But they have protection from others who, theoretically, have the obligation to punish. Nothing that happened today is new in my life and my family’s.”
Tuesday’s incident isn’t the first time Vinícius has faced racially motivated attacks during his tenure with Real Madrid. Since joining the team, he’s faced over 20 cases of alleged racist abuse, including a 2023 case that required the player to testify in court after a black mannequin with his jersey was hung from a bridge. While the organization has offered information on the past and current investigations, and consequences have been dealt to offenders, the punishments haven’t fully deterred future attacks, as seen in Tuesday’s incident.
Following the Champions League match, UEFA appointed an ethics and disciplinary inspector to oversee the case. Real Madrid has agreed to send UEFA all available evidence to help conduct the investigation.
Paris
French media group Canal+ has moved the South African broadcasting group SuperSport’s decision-making power from Johannesburg to Paris, Business Insider Africa reported on Wednesday. Canal+ aims to cut costs with the centralization of the organization.
SuperSport, which serves as South Africa’s primary sports broadcasting service, no longer has acquisition power. The European branch of the organization is now in charge of selecting which sporting events are broadcast in sub-Saharan Africa.
“[Digital Satellite Television] subscribers who are paying to get access to the stuff will, for instance, have seen that they are no longer getting the Winter Olympic Games for the first time in decades,” broadcasting journalist Thinus Ferreira said on 702, a Johannesburg radio station. “It’s because Canal+ has decided not to buy it, like the World Darts Championships and other things.”
Canal+’s decisions affect millions of households in Africa, cutting off access to prominent sporting events that have been staples in the broadcasting company for decades. The move takes power out of the hands of locals and into those of another continent. The media group first entered the South African market in 2025, with the $3 billion acquisition of MultiChoice, Africa’s largest pay-TV company. Canal+ currently has footholds in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, among other global regions.
Washington, D.C.
Following the Washington Post’s decision to gut its sports desk, among other sections of the paper, the Baltimore Banner announced on Thursday that it will take up the mantle for the region’s sports coverage.
“At a time when so much pulls communities apart, sports bring us together,” the Banner’s editor-in-chief Audrey Cooper wrote in an email to staff. “The Washington Post’s decision to eliminate its sports section creates an opportunity for us to serve more Marylanders with The Banner’s distinctive mix of fearless accountability reporting, engaging storytelling and sharp analysis.”
The Banner plans to add a new contingent of reporters to the sports desk, which is currently led by reporter Chris Korman. The publication’s expanded coverage will include beat reporting on the Washington Nationals and Washington Commanders, as well as reporting on the Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards and the University of Maryland Terrapins.
With the Post’s cuts putting hundreds of writers out of work, the Banner’s initiative helps fill the employment gap and keep local journalism alive. In contrast to the Jeff Bezos-owned Post, the Banner was founded by the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism, a nonprofit organization that launched in 2021.
The Post has continued to cover the Winter Olympics with a four-person team in Milan, but has been relatively silent on Washington, D.C.’s local scene. Despite spring training being well underway for the Nationals, the paper’s last article on the team was published on Jan. 23.
Contact Kiran Komanduri at [email protected].