TV pundit suspended for Lukaku comments
An Italian sports programme has suspended pundit Luciano Passirani after he made a racist remark on air about Inter striker Romelu Lukaku.
Passirani made the comment on TopCalcio24 on Sunday while praising Lukaku's performances for Inter this season after the Nerazzurri earned a third win from as many Serie A games by beating Udinese 1-0.
A clip was subsequently shared on social media and Passirani has now been banned from appearing on the show.
"Mr Passirani is 80 years old and to compliment Lukaku he used a metaphor that turned out to be racist," programme director Fabio Ravezzani, who also confirmed Passirani had apologised, stated.
"I think it was a terrible lack of momentary lucidity. I cannot tolerate any kind of errors, even if momentary."
Lukaku made the switch to Inter from Manchester United in the August and has scored twice in three Serie A outings thus far.
In August, Lukaku was the target of abuse in Inter's win over Cagliari.
Monkey chants could be heard as the Belgium striker converted a penalty in the 2-1 win, with Lukaku posting on Instagram afterwards: "Football is a game to be enjoyed and we shouldn't accept any form of discrimination that will put our game in shame.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Romelu Lukaku (@romelulukaku) on Sep 2, 2019 at 5:18am PDT
"Ladies and gentlemen it's 2019 – instead of going forwards we're going backwards."
