Mario Balotelli becomes another victim of the deep-rooted Serie A problem

Mario Balotelli was the latest to suffer racist abuse in Serie A.

Serie A has a real racism problem that the league, and its fans, are quick to deny. The latest incident comes from the match between Hellas Verona and Brescia.

Mario Balotelli became another name on the sheet as Verona fans were quick to chant monkey noises whenever Balotelli got the ball. Having endured enough, Balotelli kicked the ball into the stands ten minutes into the second half.

He gestured to the referee about what he’s hearing from the stands and then tried to walk off the pitch. Instead of showing solidarity, players on both teams tried to plead with him to stay on the pitch.

The racism problem in Italian football is absurd and yet nothing is being done to deter these types of incidents from happening.

Already this season we’ve seen Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku receive racist abuse from Cagliari supporters. To make matters worse, Inter’s Curva Nord then released a statement claiming Cagliari fans were not being racist and were only trying to rattle Lukaku.

They went so far as to say Lukaku needed to stand up to “real racism” and that what he went through was not racism.

Atalanta’s Dalbert and Sampdoria’s Ronaldo Vieira are other players who this season have suffered racist chants toward them.

Infamously, last season it was Juventus’ Moise Kean who, similar to what Lukaku went through after, was criticized by teammate Leonardo Bonucci and said Kean was partly responsible for the abuse.

After each of these incidents, little to no punishment has been handed down by the Italian FA. Time and time again they seem to come up with an excuse as to why a club won’t be punished and the cycle repeats itself. Expect nothing less when they review this latest incident.

The handling of these incidents have been so poor that FIFA President Gianni Infantino criticized the handling back in September.

According to ESPN, he said, “I don’t see why we have to hide the truth, not talk about what happens or say that it is not serious. No, that’s not how you go about it. It’s unacceptable, absurd,and surprising.”

Postgame, Verona manager, Ivan Juric tried to downplay the incident.

According to The Guardian, he said,

"“I’m not afraid to say that nothing happened. There was loud whistling and mockery but no racist chant. There was nothing. I am Croatian and I hear ‘Gypsy piece of sh*t’ sometimes unfortunately because unfortunately that is the tendency in Italy but today there was nothing.” – Ivan Juric (quotes via The Guardian)"

A video taken by a fan at the game says otherwise.

But that’s the standard in Italy. No one wants to admit that there is anything wrong and there will undoubtedly be more cases like this the rest of the season.

As for Balotelli, it’s a bittersweet return to Italy. While he scored in the game, it’s little consolation to what he endured and unfortunately, it’s also not the first team he’s been the victim of racist vitriol in Serie A.

FIFA’s three-strike rule of how to handle situations such as these does not work. It is better than nothing but it makes little sense to give supporters three chance when they are doing these types of things.

A real solution does not appear to be coming anytime soon so expect players, pundits and fans to have this same discussion when yet another player in Italy is subjected to racism.