Italy rugby player Cherif Traore has received apologies from his Benetton Treviso teammates after he revealed that he was given a rotten banana during a Secret Santa exchange.
Traore, a 28-year-old prop who was born in Guinea, described the anonymous gift as an “offensive gesture” made worse by the laughter of his teammates “as if everything is normal.”
“I’m used to it. Or rather, I’ve had to get used to it, putting on a brave face whenever I hear racist jokes in order to try not to hate the people close to me,” Traore wrote Thursday. “Yesterday was different, though.”
The rotten banana was inside a bag that had gained moisture. Traore, who is Black, said some of his foreign-born teammates tried to support him.
“I have been up all night. Young guys from different backgrounds attended this Secret Santa,” he wrote. “I have decided not to remain silent this time to ensure that episodes like this don’t happen again and to prevent other people finding themselves in my current situation in the future. And hoping the sender will learn a lesson...”
