Cristiano Ronaldo has called for supporters to receive lifetime stadium bans after fans appeared to target Rúben Neves with chants about his late friend and Portugal teammate Diogo Jota.
The incident occurred during Al-Taawoun’s match against Neves’s Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia.
Video circulating from the game appeared to show supporters chanting Jota’s name towards Neves.
The Portuguese midfielder was one of Jota’s closest friends and served as a pallbearer at his funeral.
Jota’s death therefore made the chants particularly personal.
Ronaldo responded by calling for those responsible to be permanently excluded from football stadiums.
Al-Hilal has filed a formal complaint over the incident.
Al-Taawoun has also condemned the behaviour, while the Saudi Arabian Football Federation and Saudi Pro League have indicated that disciplinary action will follow.
Ronaldo calls for the strongest possible punishment
Football crowds have always attempted to unsettle opposition players.
Ronaldo’s intervention raises the question of where that tradition ends.
There is a clear difference between mocking a player’s performance, taunting a rival club and deliberately invoking the death of somebody personally close to a player.
Neves and Jota played together for both Wolverhampton Wanderers and Portugal, with their friendship continuing beyond their time as club teammates.
That history transformed what might otherwise have been dismissed as terrace provocation into something far more personal.
Ronaldo’s proposed punishment leaves little room for ambiguity.
He wants those responsible banned for life.
Whether Saudi football authorities go that far remains to be seen, but with both clubs condemning the incident and disciplinary proceedings expected, the chants are unlikely to pass without consequences.
Sources
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