A clearly upset Paola is seen in a video that went viral on social media, lamenting to her agent that she gets asked “how come” she is Italian and says she has played for Italy for the last time.
Paola who was born in Italy by Nigerian parents in the video recording made after she helped Italy beat the United States to claim the bronze medal last week at the world championships, said she would be taking a break from the national team.
Before stepping down yesterday as Italy’s Prime Minister, Mario Draghi in a statement offered his “full solidarity” with Paola Egonu, describing her as the “pride of Italian sport,” pointing she would have “future opportunities to win other trophies in the shirt of the national team.”
In a related incident, a 21-year-old Gambian, Lamin Ceesay was beaten up by five men in the town of Pachino near Siracusa. Ceesay who works at a bar in nearby Marzamemi, has filed a suit for assault with a racist intent against the assailants.The bar owner said he would support his “precious worker’s legal case.”
In another racial incident this month, Italian national daily Corriere della Sera reported that Atalanta’s Colombia striker Duvan Zapata was denied entry to a Bergamo bank by a security guard because he is black.
“Where do you think you’re going? Go somewhere else, this isn’t a place for your kind,” the guard reportedly told the 31-year-old centre forward. Zapata, who has played 130 times for Atalanta and scored 66 goals for the Bergamo side, replied “I’m Zapata, I’m Zapata, let me in.”
The incident drew comparisons with that of AC Milan’s France midfielder Tiémoué Bakayoko who was pulled from his car and arrested at gunpoint in July in another case of racial profiling.
