The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) on Friday suspended 20-year-old Argentine international Gianluca Prestianni for six matches, three of them suspended for two years, over a homophobic outburst, the governing body’s disciplinary and ethics committee announced.
The incident occurred during the first leg of a Champions League playoff between Benfica of Lisbon and Real Madrid in February: the Portuguese club’s forward allegedly directed his Madrid opponent Vinícius Júnior with the Spanish slur “maricón” (faggot).
The match had been interrupted after the black Vinícius complained to the referee that Prestianni had called him “mono” (monkey). The Argentine denied it. Footage of the confrontation showed Prestianni directing the homophobic insult toward Vinícius without covering his mouth in that moment.
Prestianni had already served a one-match ban for the return leg against Madrid, having been provisionally suspended for that fixture.
Prestianni downplayed homophobic slur after the game
Prestianni also drew outrage after the match by downplaying the incident. He said, “For Argentines it’s a normal insult to say ‘cagón’ or ‘maricón'” (cagón means coward). LGBTQ+ activists criticized the notion that insulting an entire group because of their sexual orientation is the same as simply calling someone a coward.
UEFA, for its part, appeared unusually lenient toward the queerphobic remark. Article 14 of the UEFA disciplinary regulations states that “Who … belittles or discriminates against a person or a group on grounds such as their skin color, race, religion, ethnic origin, gender or sexual orientation in a manner that offends human dignity shall be suspended for at least ten games or otherwise appropriately punished.” In cases of racist abuse, UEFA has previously imposed ten-game suspensions on players Kostjantyn Machnowskji (2019) and Ondřej Kúdela (2021). There has, by contrast, never before been such a ban for queerphobic insults.
For Prestianni, the penalty could carry serious consequences, because UEFA has asked FIFA to apply the sanction worldwide. That move could affect his World Cup nomination.
