• H1: Racism in sport is a sporadic and non-recurring topic on the agenda of the Spanish sports press, save exceptional situations.

• H2: The case studied arouses particular attention because it brings together several elements of news values.

• H3: There are no significant differences between the different digital media analysed, whether from Madrid or Barcelona, in terms of the volume of news published about racism in sport.

• H4: There are differences in approach in the news coverage between the different media depending on whether they are published in Madrid or Barcelona, taking into account the football rivalry between both cities.

• H5: With their reporting, newspapers contribute to placing the problem of racism in sports on the public agenda. By denouncing racist attitudes and encouraging action against them, they help combat hate speech instead of fuelling it.

2. Material and methods

To carry out the research, news items corresponding to the five seasons of the Real Madrid player Vinicius Júnior in the Spanish Football League were analysed, this being the period from August 17, 2018 (start date of the 18/19 League) to June 4, 2023 (end date of the League 22/23).

News items published in their digital editions by the four Spanish sports newspapers with the largest circulation according to the EGM (marca.com, as.com, mundodeportivo.com and sport.es) have been compiled using the clipboard tool MyNews for each of these seasons, these pieces all contained the word “racism” in their headline and/or in the body of the text. The MyNews tool allows one to download, read and analyse the full texts of each of the news items in its original form. The digital editions were chosen for analysis instead of the printed versions because, especially since the pandemic, the consumption of digital media has increased in this area of specialisation (Martínez-Fresneda & Davara Torrego, 2022).

The same search was then carried out, but with items that included both the term “racism” and the word “Vinicius”.

Finally, within this search, the results obtained in the 15 days following the racist insults proffered against Vinicius from the stands of Mestalla stadium were isolated, as this constituted the most serious incident recorded during the period analysed. Analysis of the content of these news items was carried out by reading the texts referring to the case study using both MyNews and ATLAS.ti, which allows the linking of some terms with others (San Martín, 2014).

The study has special significance because it is not common for the sports press to address so profusely a topic that crosses the borders of sport, a topic, moreover, that has, as in this case, an undeniable social projection (Muñoz & Salido, 2018). Sports journalism has historically kept its distance from addressing topics and issues of heightened social sensitivity, which are not directly related to purely sporting matters (Rojas-Torrijos, 2023).

3. Results

The first stage of the research involved identifying the most notable racist episodes over the period analysed, considering as such those published by at least two national digital sports media simultaneously over a period of at least two days. 39 were registered in total, of which 34 were about association football, two about motorsports and one each about American football, volleyball, and tennis.

The next table includes the number of news items that have contained the term “racism” since the arrival of the Brazilian player in the LaLiga competition.

When the word “Vinicius” was added to the search for “racism”, the results were as follows:

Finally, we proceeded to specifically analyse news coverage of the insults against Vinicius recorded during the Valencia-Real Madrid match played at Mestalla stadium on May 21, 2023, as it was the sport-related racist incident with the greatest repercussion in the media during this period. The following results were obtained:

Next, a double analysis was carried out to determine if there were differences in the framing that the newspapers carried out on the same news event, especially considering that two of them are from Madrid (Marca and As) and the others from Barcelona (Sport and Mundo Deportivo), two cities with intense football rivalry embodied in their two main clubs (Real Madrid and FC Barcelona).

First, a count was made of the number of occasions on which eight representative terms were employed concerning this news event. In particular, differences were sought in the presence of the term "provoker" (and in its variants "provocation" or "provocative"), as this was the main accusation made against Vinicius on social and journalistic media. The following results were obtained:

To complement this analysis, the 512 articles under study were read from the compilation made using MyNews, to identify possible criticism of Vinicius's attitude and to find out if there were differences between the newspapers. Therefore, the fundamental underpinning of the study is the detailed reading of each of the texts. Furthermore, a distinction was made between whether this criticism was the fruit of personal opinion, that is, formulated by the author of the news item in an opinion article, or whether it was reported, and the piece was limited to repeating criticism of the player made by other people or institutions, criticism of how Valencia was being treated, or critical in a comparison with other similar cases of racist insults. The following results were obtained:

4. Discussion

As with many other topical news issues, racism in sports has inconsistent coverage in the press, depending on various criteria of journalistic interest, categorisation of news, framing by the media, or presence on the public agenda.

An example of that is the aforementioned controversy unleashed in Mestalla, which led to unprecedented press coverage, and which even led political leaders to take a stance, including the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, as well as various international institutions. However, this was not the only racist episode in the world of sports reported by the media. Why did it have such exceptional resonance?

In the five full seasons Vinicius has played in Spain, the digital editions of the four main Spanish sports newspapers (Marca, As, Mundo Deportivo and Sport) reported a total of 39 noteworthy racist episodes (Table 1). Among the 34 concerning football there are 12 incidents similar to those involving Vinicius, with racist insults by fans.

Within this timeframe, the four newspapers published 3,572 news items touching on racism, with an average of 714 per season, but with highly unequal distribution (115 in the 20-21 season, 1,018 in 2019-20, or 1,542 in 22-23) (Table 2). In the case of the 2019-20 season, the high number of reports was due to a proliferation of racist episodes with a certain degree of media coverage (15 of a total of 39 recorded over the five years, 38.4% of the total), but this pattern is not sustained in the 22-23 season, since the increase in the number of items had practically a single protagonist, Vinicius (eight of the 10 episodes), with the particularity that until that moment the footballer had only suffered one racist attack - or at least one that the press had reflected as such - despite having been playing in the Spanish league for four seasons. Therefore, of the 897 news items counted when the words “Vinicius” and “racism” are cross-referenced, 93.3% correspond to last season (Table 3).

Therefore, racism in sport is, in the eyes of the Spanish sports media, a non-recurring issue which receives minor coverage (bearing in mind the large number of news items they publish), implying that they do not perceive, in general terms, a problem of racist attitudes in Spanish sport. However, when exceptional situations occur, such as that in the case under consideration, the number of news items skyrockets. This corroborates the first hypothesis posited.

Once this point was identified, the next step was to analyse why the specific case of the insults towards Vinicius in the Valencia stadium aroused such particular attention in the media, when similar episodes with other sportspersons as victims had not done so to the same extent. This event alone generated one in seven of the reports on racism in sports in the four newspapers (14.3%) over five years, and 57% of the reports recorded in the 2022-23 season, which justifies it being the object of specific analysis.

Following the catalogue of news values criteria drawn up by Galtung & Ruge (1965), Warren (1975), Gans (1979) and Jeffres (1986), it is verified that the incident analysed brings together, to a greater or lesser extent, all the factors that make it a news item likely to receive broad coverage.

Taking Galtung and Ruge’s enumeration (1965) as a base, it having served as a model for the other academics, criteria such as “Frequency” and “Continuity” are very significant, especially between the months of February and May 2023, with five racist incidents in as many matches. Such reiteration, the seriousness of the events, and the media impact led the Professional Football League to denounce the incidents and open a file. These eight episodes stand in contrast to the virtual absence of similar events in previous seasons with the participation of the Brazilian player.

Another variable that may have played an important role was “Unexpectedness”, understood as Vinicius's reaction when pointing at the fan who made the monkey gestures, which led to the lengthy interruption of the match, and the even more virulent reaction from a part of the stands. The image, repeated insistently by all the media for days, had not occurred during similar episodes and possibly acted as a trigger to set off the media spiral.

There is also the element of “Consonance”, involving a large number of people (league officials, club officials, referees, the Competition Committee, teammates and rivals, coloured players from other teams, fans, etc.) spread over a wide geographic area. Furthermore, being a Brazilian player (a country in which football is lived with special intensity), the matter crossed national borders.

Regarding “Absolute Intensity”, the news evidently had a significant impact on society, as it involved an important player in a team with a large fan base, with the issue being one that involves social change and stirs up strong emotions. The event also involves “Relevance” which made it become news, since it is clear that racism is considered an important social issue. Furthermore, at the time the event took place, Spain was immersed in the general election pre-campaign, and the various parties’ candidates seized the opportunity to position themselves clearly against racism.

“Negativity” is also evident, since racist insults in a stadium are an obvious denial of human rights that draws the attention of celebrities and influential people (“Elite Values”). It is also unequivocal news, lacking complexity in the determination of its essential facts (xenophobic insults towards a black player in a football stadium) and therefore contains the criterion of “Unambiguity”.

Another criterion of news values met in this coverage is that of “Meaningfulness”, the fact that the victim is a Real Madrid striker, one of the most popular players in one of the most popular teams both in Spain and around the world, means the attacks are perceived by the audience as close and meaningful. Furthermore, although it is true that episodes such as this have been repeated with other protagonists, they remain exceptional and therefore validate the “Scarcity” criterion.

The particular character and marked personality of Vinicius in the Spanish football world mean that another of the news values criteria identified by Galtung and Ruge (1965) is verified: “Personalisation”, by which the news is personified in the individual.

Hypothesis 2 is thus verified with one important caveat: although other factors are present, it is the personality of the victim of the attacks that helps unleash this media storm, possibly together with the fact that his on-pitch reaction serves to feed its nature as an “Unexpected” outcome.

Once the media relevance of the event has been confirmed, it is interesting to analyse whether there are differences in how the different newspapers handle the story both individually and according to their geographical location, that is to say whether they are published in Madrid (Marca and As) or in Catalonia (Mundo Deportivo and Sport), All this takes place against the backdrop of the fierce rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona, and an alleged tendency of the Madrid press to favour their city’s team and of the Catalan media to be more critical of everything that surrounds the team in white.

On this point, analysis of the number of news items does not show significant differences in terms of coverage of racism in sport when Vinicius is the protagonist. That maxim is fulfilled whether the five seasons are analysed as a whole or if the Mestalla incident is taken in isolation. In the first case (Tables 2 and 3), from the total number of news items containing the word “racism”, Vinicius is present in 30.56% of those from Marca, 20.69% from As, 25.25% from Mundo Deportivo and practically the same percentage in Sport (25.59%). As a whole, the Brazilian player accounted for one in four pieces on racism in sport.

The four media also respond practically equally to the spiral generated after the Mestalla incident: 130 items in Marca, 125 in As, 139 in Mundo Deportivo and 118 in Sport (Table 4). Both results confirm the third hypothesis: there are no significant differences between the different media outlets, whether in headlines or geographical location, in terms of coverage of the manifestations of hatred towards the player in question. The importance of the player and the team he plays for give news value to the issue regardless of readers’ possible preference for one club or another.

However, the fourth of the hypotheses posited, that the Madrid and Barcelona newspapers take different approaches to the issue, has only been partially corroborated. There are no significant differences in the use of terminology (Table 5), specifically with anything related to an alleged provocation on the player’s part, which is his detractors’ main accusation against him, their argument being that other players of colour do not suffer the same hate speech. Curiously, the presence of the terms (provocation/provocative/provoker) is even rarer in the Catalan media (0.01) than in the Madrid press (0.02).

Where differences can be observed is in the framing of the news, whether it be to turn the player exclusively into a victim (about which there is unanimity) or to also imply that he bears some responsibility due to this supposedly provocative attitude. Thus, criticism of the player is residual in Marca (3.8% of the total number of items) and As (4%), but more significant on the Catalan portals: in Mundo Deportivo criticism of Vinicius is apparent in 13.67 % of the pieces and in Sport in 10.17%.

Furthermore, as regards the Catalan media, around half of these negative comments are made by the authors of the piece themselves, while in the rest of the cases they echo criticism from third parties or institutions. Only one criticism of the player is posted in Marca, from a total of 130 news items. None appear in As (out of 125 items).

Although there are evident differences between whether the piece formulates such criticism or simply echoes it, the same intention is present in both cases: to frame the news event not only around the racist episodes, which are universally condemned, but to question the player’s attitude, or the attitude of the organisations responsible for an alleged favourable treatment of the Brazilian striker compared to other footballers who have less projection but are also victims of similar expressions of hatred.

Therefore, the fifth and last hypothesis is confirmed for the most part, although not in its entirety. The unusual and exceptional coverage of the racist incidents suffered by Vinicius in the Spanish digital sports media has served to place the problem of racism in sport on the public agenda, even if it is personalised in just one player. The news has fuelled debate, has led to the intervention of politicians and institutions, and has functioned as a soundbox for a generalised criticism of racism. Therefore, news coverage has served to combat these attitudes, raising public awareness, instead of promoting the hate speech that is so present on social media. But after analysing the content of the news items, a certain nuance is detected when verifying that in a part of the texts (one in ten in the case of the Catalan newspapers) there are mentions of a provocative attitude by Vinicius on the pitch, although always within a context of censorship of hate speech. That may be a limitation of this study, since it would seem venturesome to judge whether the fact of questioning certain of the victim’s attitudes, or of echoing such questioning, in itself means feeding the hate speeches that are being reported and/or denounced, or whether it could be considered an attempt to contextualise the story.

In conclusion, analysis of the coverage that the main Spanish sports media give to the issue of racism in sport shows that it is not a hotly-followed issue except when a specific event meets all the criteria of newsworthiness, as happened with the racist attacks on Vinicius in the Valencia stadium. This is especially true when there are elements such as the victim having a strong personality or being a celebrity, or when there is an unexpected outcome such as the player pointing to a spectator as the author of an expression of hate, as proposed by the theory of Galtung & Ruge (1965) and echoed by other authors. Subsequent research could, for example, identify the importance of those criteria when it comes to explaining why other events of similar severity have had less repercussion due to not meeting some of the aforementioned characteristics.

Once a media storm such as the one analysed in this case has been unleashed, the deployment of the media is uniform (everyone deems it a newsworthy event), but their approach is not. While the two newspapers published in Madrid (and supposedly more inclined to support Real Madrid) present Vinicius exclusively as a victim, without questioning his attitude on the field of play, the Catalan portals mention (and criticise) in some of their texts an alleged provocative attitude by the sportsman (between 10 and 13% of the news items), although without downplaying the seriousness of the manifestations of hate, and of course in a very different tone from that which characterises social media.

As future lines of research, this same comparative study could be carried out in the general news media or, even, in cases of racism recorded in the same time frame as that of Vinicius, to determine, based on news values criteria, why they did not receive as much media attention.

Contributions by the authors

Ernesto Villar Cirujano: Conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, resources, supervision, validation, writing – original draft and writing – review & editing.

Miguel Ángel Sánchez de la Nieta: Conceptualization, investigation, resources, writing – original draft and writing – review and editing.

Julio Pulido Zaragoza: Conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, and writing – review & editing.

All the authors have read and agree with the published version of the manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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