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Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal spoke out against Islamophobic chants during Spain’s match with Egypt.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published on 3 April 2026<\/span>3 April 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Real Madrid coach Alvaro Arbeloa says Spain is a tolerant country and not racist, despite Islamophobic chants during a national team match this week.<\/p>\n “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Muslim,” sang a section of the crowd at Spain’s friendly against Egypt on Tuesday at Espanyol’s RCDE stadium in Cornell\u00e0.<\/p>\n 4 item list<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Spain and Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal, who is Muslim, criticized the chanters as “ignorant and racist”.<\/p>\n Arbeloa defended Spain on Friday and insisted racist attitudes must be eliminated.<\/p>\n The Spaniard told reporters, “I think Spain is not a racist country. If it were, we would have a problem every weekend in all the stadiums.”<\/p>\n “I keep thinking that we have to eliminate any racist attitudes in stadiums and in society. … Spain as a country has to keep fighting to get rid of these attitudes.<\/p>\n “(However,) I think we are a great country, very tolerant, and with these types of situations, we should not generalize.”<\/p>\n In high-profile incidents in recent years Real Madrid striker Vinicius Junior has been racially abused in several stadiums across the country.<\/p>\n In January 2023, Atl\u00e9tico Madrid fans hung an effigy of the Brazilian forward from a bridge near Real Madrid’s training ground.<\/p>\n Four months later, Vinicius was abused by fans at the Mestalla stadium in Valencia, in an incident which gained him worldwide support in his fight against racism.<\/p>\n In 2025, five Real Valladolid fans who racially abused Vinicius at a 2022 match were found guilty of committing a hate crime \u2013 the first such verdict in Spain in relation to insults at a football stadium.<\/p>\n Barcelona coach Hansi Flick praised teenager Yamal for making a “great statement” by condemning those responsible for the abuse.<\/p>\n Flick said, “We’re all for inclusion. … It’s disappointing that a small number of idiots don’t understand this.”<\/p>\n “We all want to be respected. It doesn’t matter your colour, your religion, your region. Now is the time to change these ideas.”<\/p>\n Atletico coach Diego Simeone said the problem is related to a lack of respect in the world.<\/p>\n “This is a social problem globally, not about Spain or Argentina or Brazil or anywhere else,” Koch said.<\/p>\n “The respect that was lost many years ago \u2013 respect for parents, school teachers, police, club directors, coaches, presidents \u2013 … is lost today. And we don’t have that.”<\/p>\n Catalonia’s regional police said they were investigating the chanting, and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez called the incident “unacceptable”.<\/p>\n “We cannot allow an unruly minority to tarnish the reality of Spain, a diverse and tolerant country,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal spoke out against Islamophobic chants during Spain’s match with Egypt. Published on 3 April 20263 April 2026 Real Madrid coach Alvaro Arbeloa says Spain is a tolerant country and not racist, despite Islamophobic chants during a national team match this week. “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Muslim,” sang a section of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[13950,2276,2048,13949,6507,615,7266,989,3155],"class_list":{"0":"post-38383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bible-news","8":"tag-chants","9":"tag-coach","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-islamophobic","12":"tag-madrid","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-racist","15":"tag-real","16":"tag-spain"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38385,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38383\/revisions\/38385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n