LaPresse

Juventus Women apologize for tweet with racist gesture

By Zac Wassink | Last updated Aug 5, 2021 4:34 PM ET

The official Twitter account for the Juventus Women has apologized for an offensive tweet shared on Thursday that has been labeled as racist by many.

Anton Toloui of Sky Sports and others shared screenshots of the deleted post and called for the individual or persons responsible to be removed by the club.

Juventus later commented on the matter via Twitter:

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 and the rest of Italian football have had unfortunate and ugly histories with racism in the past and as recently as two years ago:

Racism in worldwide football has been one of the sport's biggest talking points since England's Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were targeted with abuse online after the Three Lions fell to Italy in the UEFA European Championship final. Barcelona teenager Ilaix Moriba shared in late July he had been racially abused, and Portsmouth Football Club confirmed days later that it released three academy players after they allegedly shared discriminatory messages in a private chat.

Zac Wassink

Zac Wassink is a longtime sports news writer and PFWA member who began his career in 2006 and has had his work featured on Yardbarker, MSN, Yahoo Sports and Bleacher Report. He is also a football and futbol aficionado who is probably yelling about Tottenham Hotspur at the moment and who chanted for Matt Harvey to start the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2015 World Series at Citi Field. You can find him on X at @ZacWassink

More must-reads: