Italian soccer team Juventus and player draw backlash for slant-eye picture tweet

Bryan Ke
·2 min read

Italian soccer team Juventus apologized for the photo depicting a racist gesture that it tweeted out on the women's team's Twitter on Thursday.

What happened: The team posted a picture showing Cecilia Salvai with a slant-eye gesture while wearing a training cone on her head, mimicking what appears to be a cone hat, ESPN reported.



  • Juventus received backlash for the racist photo and later took down the post from its social media.


The aftermath: Hours later, Juventus offered an apology on Twitter saying the post “was not meant to cause controversy or have any racial undertones.”



  • The team followed up its previous post with a longer apology on its official website.




  • “Juventus immediately realized that the Club had committed an unforgivable mistake, and this mistake has seriously hurt the feelings of all people who oppose racial discrimination,” Juventus said in their statement.

  • “For such a mistake, the Club assumes full responsibility for the occurrence of the incident and its serious impact,” they added. “Opposing racial discrimination and supporting the common development of multiple cultures are the principles that Juventus as a Club has always adhered to and continues to put into practice.”

  • The team told CNN it also plans to make a “thorough review to prevent similar things from happening again.”


Featured Image via Juventus

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