• Anti-racism group labels headline 'highly offensive'
• Row overshadows Italy triumph in Warsaw
An Italian sports newspaper has defended its decision to print a headline featuring a pun on Mario Balotelli's skin colour after it came under fire from an anti-racism group.
Over a photo of Balotelli celebrating his second goal for Italy against Germany in the European Championship semi-final on Thursday night, the Turin daily Tuttosport ran the headline "Li Abbiamo Fatti Neri", which literally means "We have made them black".
The new row comes days after another Italian sports daily, La Gazzetta dello Sport, apologised for running a cartoon featuring Balotelli as King Kong. Balotelli, the first black Italian to make a major impression at national team level, suffered racist abuse during his time playing in Italy before moving to Manchester City.
The phrase used by Tuttosport in its headline is a slang expression meaning to bruise, literally to make someone black and blue. Gianni De Pace, the assistant editor, said it also referred to Balotelli's skin colour, but defended the headline. "It was a reference to him being black, but it is just a pun," he said. "It was also because when he took his shirt off he looked like a boxer who bruises opponents.
"There are three sporting newspapers in Italy and we have to make an impression with language which has an impact, but no one in Italy will have seen this as racist," he said.
De Pace said Tuttosport was not a racist publication. "When Juventus fans abused Balotelli we were very tough on them. We are proud to have Balotelli as an ambassador of multi-ethnicity in Italy."
But one anti-racism campaigner accused the paper of fuelling racism with its headline. "It is highly offensive, you cannot brush this off as a pun," said Robert Elliott, who works with Occhio Ai Media, an Italian organisation which monitors racism in the Italian press. "Drawing attention to the colour of Balotelli's skin dehumanises him and labels him as a black player before all else, even when he is proudly playing for Italy." Read More
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