After the insults to the rival player, the dismissal, after the dismissal, the insults from those who frequent social media, after the insults on social media, the defense of the player and manager. All in a few days.
Andrea Congiu, coach of Cus Cagliari five-a-side football, was relieved of his duties immediately after Tuesday's match against Villacidrese due to the racist epithets addressed by the coach to the Brazilian footballer Sergio Rocha: "unacceptable and unjustifiable" behavior, underlined the player Serena Cappai and Alessio Correnti, head of futsal for the club, adding that "there is nothing else to add about what happened on the pitch".
However, they argue, there is "a father, a husband and a son who does not deserve to see himself painted as a monster who does not exist" and who "is not racist" but "a nice person". And there are social media where insults aimed at those who made a mistake, despite immediate apologies (which "do not erase the gestures and actions performed"), become an unmanageable wave. Where everyone becomes "judges and executioners of the person who made the mistake" among those who "want him in flames, those who accuse him of not being worthy of the sport he has been teaching for 30 years, those who want to see him tried and executed".
Here, writes Correnti, we forget "that behind the life we believe we live online there is always a person of flesh and blood with feelings and emotions" and that "we have all made mistakes and will make mistakes again" without having to "be put pilloried and executed in the public square." Making mistakes «is human. Andrea is not a racist, he has taught many boys and girls how to play for more than 30 years and how to coach many young coaches. Andrea has a warm character, it's true, and he made a mistake, but he is a good person who made a serious mistake and is paying the consequences. However, this does not erase how much good he has done up to that moment and how much good he will be able to do in the future."
But if nothing can justify the immediate reaction, no one should feel the right to "give an unsolicited opinion, that gratuitous malice to make us feel more and more splendid than whoever is blamed at that moment, a useless accusation just to let the rest know of the world (of social media) how good we are and how bad others are", adds Cappai.
The case of those "ignorant people who allowed themselves to have their say without knowing the reality of the facts, the cowards, the little keyboard lions who become bunnies in real life. The truth is that Andrea Congiu made a mistake and was punished. Those who know him know that for him five-a-side football came above everything else, they know how much he viscerally loved this sport and the teams he followed. I was lucky enough to have him as my coach for three years, in which he taught me a lot and gave me a thousand other reasons to continue playing. Three years of which I am proud, in which he always spoke of respect for his teammate and opponent and in which I never heard a racist phrase come out of his mouth. Andrea is also a father, a husband and a son who has a family, who does not deserve to see himself painted as a monster that does not exist. He also deserves due recognition for all the beauty and goodness he has left behind in recent years. It's not racist. I would like to invite the jackals and turn off the PC and cell phones and find a little sensitivity and humility."
Finally, thanks «for everything you have done for us: your team knows what a beautiful person you are and this must give you strength to fight the evil that is falling on you. Come on Mister."
