{"id":23920,"date":"2026-02-18T11:59:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/champions-league-tie-halted-after-vinicius-junior-reports-racist-abuse\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:40","slug":"champions-league-tie-halted-after-vinicius-junior-reports-racist-abuse","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/champions-league-tie-halted-after-vinicius-junior-reports-racist-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions League tie halted after Vinicius Junior reports racist abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Real Madrid\u2019s Champions League knockout play-off at Benfica was temporarily halted for 10 minutes after Brazil forward Vinicius Junior reported alleged racist abuse. Vinicius and his team-mates left the field in protest, before play resumed in the 60th minute.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Referee Fran\u00e7ois Letexier signalled racist abuse with the crossed-arms gesture following a conversation with Vinicius. The forward had put Real Madrid 1-0 ahead in the second half at the Estadio da Luz before being booked for an excessive celebration.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The incident followed an on-field interaction with Benfica\u2019s Gianluca Prestianni, after which Vinicius approached the referee, claiming he had been racially abused by the Argentina winger. Real Madrid confirmed the allegation in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The match continued after the 10-minute stoppage, with Real Madrid holding on for a 1-0 victory after 12 minutes of stoppage time. During the closing stages, an object thrown from the crowd struck Vinicius on the arm.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23921,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-23920","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Real Madrid\u2019s Champions League knockout play-off at Benfica was temporarily halted for 10 minutes after Brazil forward Vinicius Junior reported alleged racist abuse","published_date":"2026-02-18 13:58:19","news_description":"Real Madrid\u2019s Champions League knockout play-off at Benfica was temporarily halted for 10 minutes after Brazil forward Vinicius Junior reported alleged racist abuse","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26750,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23920\/revisions\/26750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}