Football World Cup: Racism scandal: Paraguayan senator resigns

After the Équipe Tricolore were eliminated in the semi-finals of the World Cup against Spain (0-2), the politician showed herself demonstratively in the colors of Spain in the Paraguayan Senate and declared: “Like many others, I am happy for Spain, the mother country. That’s why the colors as a homage. (…) Mbappé has now received his karma. The Paraguayan karma, not just mine,” the newspaper “Hoy” quoted the politician as saying.

Amarilla had previously made fun of the French failure against the Iberians with malicious memes on her social media channels.

Racist insults

One day after Paraguay’s World Cup exit in the round of 16 against France (July 4), the senator described the French striker as, among other things, a “colonized Cameroonian” who played the tough Frenchman, was “full of inferiority complexes, nouveau riche, arrogant and ugly”. The reason was that Mbappé had refused Paraguay’s national goalkeeper Orlando Gill a handshake.

Mbappé later responded publicly to the statements. When asked whether she had expected a reaction from the footballer, Amarilla said: “Who would think that Mbappé would answer you? No, nothing, I just posted it for fun.”

The senator is not afraid that her racist outbursts could lead to criminal prosecution in France. “I guess it’s been forgotten. I don’t know if the prosecution has its own schedule or if I’ll be notified, but for me it’s over,” “Hoy” further quoted her as saying.

Criminal charges in France

Instead, she described the fuss surrounding her statements as a journalistic success. “I can’t ask for more popularity than what this gave me.”

France’s football association filed a complaint following the politician’s verbal abuse. The Paris public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into public insults on a racist basis and public incitement to hatred or violence.