‘Massive statement’ Aussie’s hoping to make against Arsenal<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Justin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/976b3a49f30221bd3779c9db78490970ffd6798f.png\")
<\/p>\n
Justin Vidic in action for the Roar.\u00a0Steve Christo\/ Corbis via Getty Images<\/p>\n
While influenza was cited as the official reason for Vidic’s absence, Valkanis hinted that the 21-year-old was also reeling from the alleged racial abuse that marred the end of Tuesday’s 1-0 loss to City in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
Football Australia (FA) is investigating Vidic’s allegation that Memeti directed a racial slur at him, calling him a “gypsy”.<\/p>\n
The incident allegedly occurred after the final whistle and was therefore not addressed by the referee during regulation time.<\/p>\n
FA is using its Member Protection Framework to investigate the matter, relying on a review of broadcast footage and official referee reports from the match.<\/p>\n
Vidic is of Serbian descent, while Memeti is of Albanian heritage. Within the context of Balkan history, the term “gypsy” is regarded as a derogatory ethnic slur.<\/p>\n
During his post-match press conference on Friday, Valkanis explained that Vidic’s absence from the game was because of a combination of physical illness and emotional distress.<\/p>\n
![\"Melbourne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/28f7b07d57fa3fccc2c5244d9600031a0b86bb66.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Melbourne City’s Medin Memeti and Brisbane Roar’s James McGarry contest the ball during their round 20 A-League Men match.\u00a0Daniel Pockett via Getty Images<\/p>\n
“[Vidic] was really disappointed after the game and really angry at what was [allegedly] said,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He came in [after the City game], he trained, but you could see he was flat. He was fatigued, and I think a lot of these things, like the flu, come from fatigue as well.<\/p>\n
“There’s no other reason for it. He couldn’t even give 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
“He’s really not in a good way at the moment, so for him, it was an early reset, and hopefully he’s on board for training for next week.”<\/p>\n
Brisbane’s next fixture is an away clash against Perth on Friday night.<\/p>\n
FA will not prevent Memeti from playing while the investigation is ongoing, leaving the 18-year-old available for City’s clash against the Jets at Melbourne Rectangular Stadium on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane coach Michael Valkanis has said Roar striker Justin Vidic is “not in a good way” after alleging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-405147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}