An Italian football pundit has been suspended with immediate effect after saying that the only way to stop Inter Milan striker Romelu Lukaku is to feed him bananas.
Luciano Passirani made the racist remarks on the TopCalcio24 show on Sunday, the day after Lukaku had helped Inter maintain their 100 per cent winning start in Serie A with a 1-0 victory against Udinese.
‘I don’t see in the Italian league a player like Lukaku in any team, not in AC Milan, Inter, Rome, Lazio,’ Passirani said.
‘If you go one-on-one with him he will murder you. The only way to come up against him is maybe give him 10 bananas to eat…’
Lukaku has only played three games in Italian football since his big-money move from Manchester United in the summer but already he has been the victim of racist abuse on two separate occasions.
During Inter’s 2-1 win over Cagliari in which he scored a penalty, Lukaku was subjected to monkey taunts by Cagliari supporters who did likewise to Moise Kean and Blaise Matuidi during a match with Juventus in April.
Sadly, it was not the only racist incident to take place in Serie A this weekend as AC Milan midfielder Franck Kessie was also abused during his side’s 1-0 victory against Hellas Verona on Sunday.
Infuriatingly, Verona denied any wrongdoing from their supporters, Tweeting afterwards: ‘The boos to Kessie? The insults to Donnarumma? Perhaps someone’s been dazed by the decibels of the Gialloblu fans.’
Programme director Fabio Ravezzani said of Passirani’s comments: ‘Mr Passirani is 80 years old and to compliment Lukaku he used a metaphor that turned out to be racist.
‘I think it was a terrible lack of momentary lucidity. I cannot tolerate any kind of errors, even if momentary.’
