La Liga President Javier Tebas responds to Vinicius Junior comments – ‘His comments are not coherent’ | OneFootball

La Liga President Javier Tebas has told the press at an event in China that he does not believe Vinicius Junior was speaking coherently during an interview in which he suggested Spain should potentially lose the 2030 World Cup final if improvements are not made in regards to the handling of racism.

Tebas spoke to the press during a business trip to Beijing, and admitted that he was hoping for improvements in the Chinese market when it comes to exporting La Liga, as recounted by Relevo.

“It is publicly known that in China all non-national sports competitions have suffered a price drop. We want to try to recover that value and, to do so, we must have much more presence.”

Meanwhile on the Vinicius interview, the Brazilian received significant backlash, with the Mayor of Madrid Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida asking for him to retract his statements. Tebas said that Vinicius’ own words did not make sense.

“I think that, if you look, you will see that his statements were not entirely consistent with what he himself says in the interview. At the same time that he was saying that perhaps the World Cup should be re-considered, he was also saying that Spain is not a racist country.”

He would go on to say that he agreed with some of what Vinicius was saying.

“Let’s remove what is incoherent and keep what is coherent: that Spain is not a racist country, and on that I agree with Vinicius,” Tebas remarked.

It remains a highly touchy subject in Spain, with Vinicius continuing to lead the charge against racism in sport. That has been praised on the whole, but in general the reaction from not only Tebas, but also teammate Dani Carvajal, has been to reject the idea that Spain should be at risk of losing the World Cup.