Baraja: “We have paid our punishment for racism, which is something that has not happened in any other stadium”

Valencia head coach Ruben Baraja spoke to the media today ahead of his side’s La Liga clash vs Mallorca. Many questions, unsurprisingly, were now about the football match, but about new developments in the last 24 hours on the racism shed by Valencia fans at the Mestalla back in May of last season.

On Thusday, Vinicius gave his statement via a teleconference, and Valencia, as a club, responded with a statement, calling him a “liar” for generalizing Valencia fans as racist. The statement was made despite there being clear video evidence that it was many Valencia fans who spewed racism that day, and not just a few.

Baraja, when asked about it today, referred to his club’s statement.

“Valencia has made a statement and we made it quite clear when it happened, and after that game that there is zero tolerance for racism,” Baraja said. “For me it is a closed case, I am not going to go into evaluating things, we have already paid our toll for what happened and I am not going to talk more about it.

“Valencia has made a statement and I I refer to it. Measures were taken after what happened so that it was resolved and it was shown that there had been specific situations and not the entire stadium, as Vinicius argues. I am not going to go into evaluating this issue further. I refer to the Valencia’s way of acting after what happened.”

Baraja says that Valencia have paid their punishment.

“We have paid our punishment,” the Valencia coach said. “Which is something that has not happened in any stadium despite the fact that there have been many complaints”