The Lecce-Lazio football match in Serie A was suspended for a few minutes due to the racist chants that the Lazio ultras reserved for two Lecce players, Lameck Banda and Samuel Umtiti, both in the first and second half. Racist chants from the Via del Mare stadium guest sector were heard throughout the match, and were directed at Zambian striker Banda and French defender Umtiti. In particular, those addressed to Umtiti in the second half elicited a collective response from the local public, who tried to cover the monkey verses coming from the guest sector with applause and chants in support of the player. Umtiti was world champion with France in 2018 and arrived in Lecce in the summer, after six seasons at Barcelona, to relaunch a career marked in recent years by injuries. He was one of the best against Lazio and the consistency of his performance helped to attract insults. At the end of the match the choirs became so insistent that the referee had to apply the protocol provided in these cases by suspending the game to invite the stadium speaker to warn the fans of the possible consequences in case of recurrence: return to the locker rooms of the teams and definitive interruption of the game. For the record, Lecce won 2-1.
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