Ellis Genge has called for action to be taken after condemning Benetton’s weak response to the racial abuse of their prop Cherif Traore by his teammates.
Italy prop Traore revealed on Instagram that he received a rotten banana from an anonymous colleague in the club’s Secret Santa and that other players reacted to the present by laughing, making him feel “hurt”.
Benetton’s initial statement made no mention of punishing those involved and although the whole squad have since apologised to Traore, it is the Guinea-born 28-year-old who has appeared on the team’s social media channels in the hope of bringing the incident to a conclusion.
“No well done, absolutely right, “gifting” a “team mate” a rotten banana for secret Santa is not a big deal and a simple apology will suffice!” England prop Genge said on Twitter.
“If there is no further action on this from Benetton then everything we’ve done for “rugby against racism” has been a tick box for most.”
Stade Francais’ former Wasps centre Paolo Odogwu, who qualifies for England and Italy, joined Genge in hitting out at Benetton’s attempts to draw a line under the incident.
“Crazyy lack of accountability here, doesn’t feel much like “family” making the person whose already suffered do the PR,” Odogwu said on Twitter.
All Benetton players were summoned to the United Rugby Championship club’s training ground on Wednesday afternoon where they apologised to Traore and were addressed by president Amerino Zatta.
“The meeting was an opportunity to discuss and understand how what one of my team-mates did when exchanging Christmas presents is purely the result of idiocy and nothing other,” Traore said.
“I appreciate and accept his apology and that of the entire team. I’m happy with the gesture and I’m sure what happened will make the group even more solid.
“We are a family and as such we will continue to commit ourselves on and off the pitch, fighting, as we always have, against all forms of discrimination.”
Traore, who emigrated to Italy from west Africa as a seven-year-old and has won 16 Italy caps, brought the abuse to light in a post on Instagram that was temporarily taken down.
“Yesterday, when it was my turn, I found a banana inside my present. A rotten banana inside a bag of moisture,” he said on the now-deleted Instagram post.
“Apart from calling the gesture offensive, what hurt me most was seeing most of my mates present laughing. As if everything is normal.
“I’m used to it. Or rather, I’ve had to get used to it, putting on a brave face whenever I hear racist jokes in order to try not to hate the people close to me. Yesterday was different though.
“Thankfully some comrades, especially foreigners, tried to support me. Outside Italy a gesture like this is severely condemned even in small instances and this time I want to say my piece.”
Zatta condemned an incident that has provoked outage, although Benetton’s president has now also come under fire for failing to conduct a meaningful investigation.
“I’m happy that Cherif accepted the apology, understanding the absurd stupidity of one of his team-mates,” Zatta said.
“I am sure that this will strengthen the sense of cohesion within the group and that such a gesture will never happen again in our family.”
