Romelu Lukaku / Twitter
Jay-Z’s Roc Nation has taken out a full-page ad to tell Italian soccer fans to stop being racist after the humiliation suffered by Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku.
On April 4, the Belgian-born Black soccer player was heckled by racist fans making monkey noises and throwing banana peels at him during a match against Juventus F.C. at Turin’s Allianz Stadium.
The jeering and antagonism prompted Roc Nation, which represents a number of professional athletes in various sports including basketball, baseball, football, and boxing, to take out an ad in a premium sports newspaper to signal progressive change.
La Gazzetta dello Sport, Italy’s daily sports newspaper, ran an ad from Roc Nation.
In a localized translation, the ad says the following: “Dear Italy, Do better. Want better. Be better. In professional [soccer], Black players have been subjected to hatred during professional [soccer] games. The hatred has displayed itself in the form of monkey chants, racial slurs and banana peels tossed at the best players in the world, as the world watches, as the children watch, as the players’ families watch. No one has faced any consequences for this heinous behavior. Nothing has changed. No action has been taken.”
Lukaku was heckled so badly by Juventus fans that the ref had to penalize the Black soccer player a yellow card – a yellow card is a cautionary penalty given to a player by the referee for a minor infringement of the rules – for Lukaku was provoking Juventus fans by holding his finger to his lips.
Roc National Sports international president Michael Yormark said in a statement, “Tonight’s racist remarks made towards Romelu Lukaku by Juventus fans in Turin were beyond despicable and cannot be accepted,”
“Before, during, and after the penalty, he was subjected to hostile and disgusting racist abuse. Romelu celebrated in the same manner he has previously celebrated goals,” Yormark said.
The paper, based just a few miles from where the racist incident took place, is one of the oldest and most respected sports newspapers in the world, with a daily circulation of around 350,000.
In August 2021, it was announced that Romelu Lukaku had signed with Roc Nation Sports, a sports management agency founded by Jay-Z. Roc Nation Sports represents several high-profile athletes across multiple sports, including basketball player Kevin Durant, baseball player Robinson Cano and American football player Saquon Barkley.