Benfica vs Real Madrid match suspended as chaos ensues following Vini Jr incident
The Champions League clash between Real Madrid and Benfica has been suspended after Vinicius Jr was allegedly racial abused by a opposition player.
On Tuesday night, Real Madrid travelled to Lisbon to face Jose Mourinho's Benfica in a Champions League play-off clash.
After a hard-fought first half, Benfica managed to keep the score at 0-0 at half-time, after Real Madrid dominated the match.
Not long into the second half, Real Madrid star Vinicius Jr scored a beautiful goal to open the scoring and put the visitors ahead.
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However, the moment was quickly overshadowed as a Benfica player allegedly made a racist comment towards the Brazilian, forcing the match to be suspended for 10 minutes.
Just minutes into the second half, Vinicius Junior found the back of the net and immediately ran to the corner flag to celebrate beside the opposition fans, antagonising supporters.
Moments later, just as the match was about to kick off once again, the Real Madrid goalscorer was seen sprinting over to the referee to report that he had been racially abused by an opposition player.
The match was immediately suspended as the protocol for a racial comment had to be followed, but that didn't stop swarms of players and staff from both teams swarming onto the pitch in anger, leading to one member of the Benfica coaching staff being shown a red card.
Meanwhile Mourinho was quick to approach Vinicius and other members of the Real Madrid staff to speak to them about the moment.
Reacting to the moment live on Amazon Prime, Alan Shearer said: "It's such a shame, isn't it? We should be talking about an excellent piece of skill and how he produced a piece of magic which this game needed."
Meanwhile Mark Clattenberg added: "As a referee, I have had this situation before when players have reported a racial comment on the field of play. All he can do is make the report. Afterwards, then Uefa will look into this. As a referee it is very difficult in this situation."
As it stands, it is not yet known what exactly was said to Vinicius Jr, or who said it to him, but Benfica forward Gianluca Prestianni was seen covering his mouth with his shirt as he approached Vinicius moments before the report was made.
Following the 10 minute interruption, Vinicius returned to the pitch and the match resumed with the score remaining 1-0 to Real Madrid.
Topics: Champions League, Real Madrid, Benfica, Vinicius Jr, Racism, Football
Ben McCrum