Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni was handed a six-match suspension for discriminatory conduct that was deemed homophobic in a Champions League match against Real \u200bMadrid, UEFA announced this Friday.<\/p>\n
Prestianni will effectively be banned for \u200ctwo more matches after UEFA said that a further three-match suspension would be “subject to a probationary period of two years, starting from the date of the present \u200bdecision.” He has already served a one-match provisional suspension.<\/p>\n
The Argentine \u200bwinger was accused of directing a slur at Real Madrid forward \u2060Vinicius Jr during the Spanish side’s 1-0 Champions League playoff first-leg \u200bwin in February.<\/p>\n
The first leg was suspended for 11 minutes shortly after Vinicius \u200bgave Real the lead early in the second half.<\/p>\n
Television footage showed Prestianni covering his mouth with his shirt repeatedly before making comments that Vinicius and nearby teammates interpreted \u200bas a racial slur against the 25-year-old.<\/p>\n
Prestianni had denied the accusation \u200bthat he had made a racist comment, saying Vinicius misheard him. Real’s Aurelien Tchouameni \u200csaid \u2060the Argentine told him he did not call Vinicius a “monkey” but directed a homophobic comment at him.
\nUEFA also said they would request FIFA to extend the suspension worldwide.<\/p>\n
The suspension also includes the one-match provisional suspension \u200bPrestianni served during \u200bthe second leg \u2060of their knockout playoff on February 25, which Real Madrid won 2-1 to advance.<\/p>\n
Benfica said they had been \u200bnotified about the sanction imposed on Prestianni.<\/p>\n
“Of the \u200bthree-match effective \u2060ban, one has already been served and the remaining two must be served in UEFA matches or Argentina national team matches in a FIFA \u2060context,” Benfica \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
Prestianni has played for Argentina only once, \u200bmaking his debut as a late substitute in a friendly game against Angola in November.<\/p>\n
\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23831,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-32941","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Prestianni will effectively be banned for \u200ctwo more matches.","published_date":"","news_description":"Prestianni will effectively be banned for \u200ctwo more matches.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32941","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\/32941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32942,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32941\/revisions\/32942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}