The Benfica winger accused of racially abusing Vinícius Jr is set to claim that his Real Madrid opponent referred to him as a dwarf or midget during the match.
Gianluca Prestianni has been provisionally suspended by Uefa and will miss the return leg of the Champions League play-off against Real on Wednesday. The Argentinian 20-year-old is one of the shortest male players in elite football at 5ft 5in tall and it is understood his defence will be that he retaliated using homophobic language after being taunted about his height.
Insiders say that the defence will be considered no excuse at all for using unacceptable racist language or discriminatory slurs.
Prestianni was seen speaking to Vinícius with his shirt over his mouth after the Real winger celebrated scoring the only goal in the first leg of the tie last Tuesday. Vinícius complained to the referee that Prestianni had used the word “mono”, or monkey, towards him, and has been backed up by his team-mate Kylian Mbappé, who said he also heard the abuse.
Mbappé backed up the claims of his Real Madrid team-mate
ANTONIO VILLALBA/REAL MADRID VIA GETTY IMAGES
Prestianni has claimed he said “maricon”, a homophobic slur, but both racial abuse and homophobic language are breaches of Article 14 of the Uefa disciplinary rules and carry lengthy bans as punishment.
Taunts about a player’s physical characteristics such as height, size of ears or baldness are not covered by the rules.
Prestianni, who is being investigated by Uefa’s disciplinary body, could be banned for up to ten games — that was the sanction handed out by Uefa in 2021 to the Slavia Prague defender Ondrej Kudela for racially abusing Rangers’ Glen Kamara.
Mbappé said immediately after the match — which was held up for ten minutes after the alleged racist abuse was reported to the referee — that he heard Prestianni call Vinícius a monkey up to five times.
“I called him racist because I think he is,” Mbappé said. “He tried to hide behind his shirt, but his face doesn’t lie. A young player cannot have the freedom to say things like this on a football field.”