{"id":66900,"date":"2026-02-18T20:17:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/benfica-real-madrid-match-halted-over-racist-abuse"},"modified":"2026-02-18T20:58:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:58:47","slug":"benfica-real-madrid-match-halted-over-racist-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/benfica-real-madrid-match-halted-over-racist-abuse","title":{"rendered":"Benfica-Real Madrid Match Halted Over Racist Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"ap-article-header-tag\"> <strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong> <\/span>The UEFA Champions League play-off match between Benfica and Real Madrid was halted for about 10 minutes following allegations of racist abuse targeting Vinicius Junior on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred in the second half at Estadio da Luz after the Brazilian forward scored in the 50th minute to give the Spanish side a 1-0 lead. Vinicius was shown a yellow card for excessive celebration near the corner flag.<\/p>\n<p>Following an exchange with Benfica\u2019s Gianluca Prestianni, Vinicius approached French referee Francois Letexier. Letexier made the crossed-arms gesture \u2014 UEFA\u2019s protocol signal for racist abuse \u2014 before Vinicius left the pitch, followed by his Real Madrid teammates.<\/p>\n<p>Players and coaching staff from both sides became involved in discussions, while Benfica manager Jose Mourinho was also seen speaking with Vinicius as tensions rose.<\/p>\n<p>The match resumed approximately 10 minutes later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ap-article-footer-note\">Find more news and analyses on <span class=\"ap-highlight-country\">Lesotho<\/span> on the <span class=\"ap-highlight-brand\">Africa Press<\/span> website<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. The UEFA Champions League play-off match between Benfica and Real Madrid was halted for about 10 minutes following allegations of racist abuse targeting Vinicius Junior on Tuesday. The incident occurred in the second half at Estadio da Luz after the Brazilian forward scored in the 50th minute to give the Spanish side [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":66899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[2728,245,7151,2508,2678],"class_list":["post-66900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-benfica","tag-lesotho","tag-racist-abuse","tag-real-madrid","tag-vinicius-junior"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Benfica-Real Madrid Match Halted Over Racist Abuse - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"-article-header-tag&quot;&gt; Africa-Press - Lesotho. 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