This is how Lamine Yamal decided to break his silence
The footballer, on his own initiative, worked with his communication agency so as not to remain silent after the Spain-Egypt match
Barcelona"I know that [the chants] were directed at the opposing team [Egypt], but as a Muslim person, it is still a lack of respect and something intolerable [...]. To those who sing these things: using religion as a mockery leaves you as ignorant and racist people," published the Barça star and pillar of Luis de la Fuente's team on his social media on Wednesday. On Tuesday, after the match against Egypt and the globally shameful scene that occurred in the confrontation against the North African team, the footballer left the Espanyol stadium with his head down and without greeting the local fans. Afterwards, he passed through the mixed zone hastily, absorbed, looking at his mobile phone, barely wanting to look up to see the press who were interviewing some of his teammates. Lamine Yamal was restless.
His paternal family is Muslim. In fact, his grandmother Fátima raised and cared for him during his childhood weekends in the Mataró neighborhood of Rocafonda. Despite his parents separating when he was very young and him going to live with his mother Sheila in Granollers – before moving to La Masia – he remained deeply rooted in this neighborhood. Lamine Yamal has great esteem for Fátima. When he started to make a name for himself in Barça's first team, he continued to go, from time to time, to his grandmother's house for a snack, as he did as a child. She is the main influence who, last year, a few months before turning eighteen, made him celebrate his first Ramadan. Thus, a large part of Lamine Yamal's childhood, despite his maternal family moving to Barcelona when he signed for Barça – they have now bought them a house in Maresme – and him moving into La Masia, is marked by Rocafonda. Besides his paternal family's residence, his uncle Abdul ran the Panadería Arábiga there, and now, in the neighborhood, he has a bar in honor of his nephew: Bar Familia LY 304.
Lamine Yamal did not want to remain silent
The Islamophobic insults during the Spain-Egypt match on Tuesday, and which were not the act of a few imbeciles, hurt the footballer. On Wednesday, when he woke up, he was still uneasy. He wanted to do something about it, he didn't want to remain silent. He decided to use his platform and thought he should share a message on his social media, specifically on Instagram, an app that footballers really like and that Lamine Yamal uses practically every day. There he shares motivational messages before important matches or thank you messages to the fans, posts that correspond to advertising commitments – and from his Kings League team –, jokes with teammates, moments with his closest circle – his cousin Mohamed Abde and his childhood best friend, Souhaib, and his younger brother – and, also, for example, he shared moments with the Argentine singer Nicki Nicole, while their brief relationship lasted.
It is his most personal communication channel and loudspeaker, and he decided to also use it to protest against the racism he experienced during the Spain-Egypt match. The agency The Underdogs, a marketing firm that depends on Gestifute, Jorge Mendes' main company, is the one that advises him on communication matters, as well as on the management of advertising agreements. It is founded by Bernardo San Torcuato, who is mainly in charge of the footballer's communication and promotion affairs, while his brother Santiago San Torcuato and Santiago Liotta, both lawyers, handle the legal advice. Lamine Yamal has the final say in everything published on his Instagram. He does not publish anything without having seen it, even if it is an advertising agreement. The initiative to publicly condemn the Islamophobic insults on Tuesday was born from the player's own initiative, who communicated what he intended to do to the aforementioned agency and, together, they agreed on the message that he would finally publish on his Instagram.
His father, Mounir, also did not remain silent. In his case, he spoke in an Instagram live from the dining room of his apartment in Barcelona with a Catalan flag in the background. "Long live Spain, Muslims, Christians, Jews, and everyone equally. What problem do you have? We are brothers. If you respect, you will be respected," he said. This Friday, Hansi Flick, in support of his footballer –and of society, in general– also referred to the matter with forcefulness: "Lamine made a fantastic statement. In the world of football, we are for inclusion. It was frustrating. It's a small number of idiots who don't understand it. It's time to think and improve. Not just in football, but also in life. Racism has no place. We all want to be respected and it doesn't matter what skin color, race, or religion we have. None of that. We don't want racism. It's time to change all these thoughts."