Spain: Football match interrupted over racist insults. Seville's trainer says he is a proud Romani man and nobody calls him a "gypsy"
The league football match between Getafe and Seville in Spain last weekend was marred by fans from the Getafe home side shouting racist abuse at Seville player Marcos Acuña, causing the referees to interrupt the duel for several minutes. The Seville side's trainer, who used to work with the Getafe team and is proud of his Romani origin, also complained after the match that he had been targeted with racially-motivated insults from the stands.
Referees stopped the match at the 68th minute and did not resume play until the announcer called on fans to refrain from racist, xenophobic insults. According to the records of the match, Getafe fans called Acuña, who played for the victorious national team of Argentina in the 2022 World Cup, a “monkey”, among other things.
Judges did not officially mention any other incidents. However, Seville trainer Enrique “Quique” Sánchez Flores complained that some Getafe fans also targeted him for insults over his Romani origin.
“I am proud to be Roma with every pore of my body, but it’s one thing to be Roma and another to be insulted because of it,” the Seville trainer and former player said after the match. “There are fans who believe they can say whatever they want in the stadium. It happens in each and every stadium,” Sánchez Flores said, adding that some fans for Getafe did also object to the racism.
Seville defeated Getafe 1:0 and condemned the fans’ racist behavior. The interruption of the match and reprimanding of the viewers was also condoned by Getafe coach José Bordalás.
Support for the referees’ decision was also expressed on the X social media site by Brazilian footballer Vinicius Junior, who has been repeatedly targeted with racist insults while playing for Real Madrid.
The career of Sánchez Flores
“Quique” Sánchez Flores, a Madrid native, spent the first 10 years of his career playing in Valencia, where he began during the 1984–85 season. In the summer of 1994 he moved to Real Madrid and remained in the capital for two seasons, winning the League title in the very first one.
He then spent a short time at Real Zaragoza and ended his professional career at the age of 32 having played in a total of 304 matches, scoring 16 goals at the highest level of competition in Spain. He played 15 matches internationally for the national team of Spain, including during the 1990 World Cup.
Sánchez Flores’ international debut was on 23 September 1987 in a friendly match against Luxembourg which Spain won 2:0 in Castellón de la Plana. After ending his career as a player, he became a trainer.
His first such engagement was for Real Madrid’s youth team, where he began training them in 2001. After three seasons with the youth team he transferred to Getafe, a Premier League team, after which he also trained Valencia, Atlético de Madrid – the team that won the European League in 2010 – and Espanyol at the highest level of competition in Spain.
Outside of Spain, he has also worked as a trainer for Benfica in Portrugal’s Premier League and twice for Watford in England’s Premier League, as well as in China and the United Arab Emirates. In December of 2023 he became Seville’s trainer.
