Alvaro and Neymar: a conflict turned into parody

It’s something that has become a bit of a joke. The conflict between Alvaro and Neymar started as a another reminder of the ugliness of racism, with both players involved in situations of that ilk, but now it has become into a bit of a parody, with two players seemingly trying to get more out of a situation that should be taken a lot more seriously.

What was initially a very worrisome issue in world football has rapidly turned into a parody of sorts where the people involved seem to be milking this just for more clout and attention. This is the best way I can describe the conflict between Neymar and Alvaro in the Ligue 1 tournament. At the beginning of the season, Olympique de Marseille and Paris Saint Germain faced each other and there was a row between Neymar and Alvaro that turned into a very heated state of affairs. But there is more to that than just the original story.

The original story was that Marseille’s Alvaro said racist comments to Neymar, but it was later revealed that the Brazilian also had his own set of intolerant comments towards Alvaro’s Japanese teammate, Hiroki Sakai. All of this has resulted in a very heated argument and both players getting hefty sanctions at the start of the season. Of course, things have stayed heated and when Neymar entered as a sub in last’s week against Marseille, he was constantly challenging Alvaro and the latter didn’t back down either, turning the game into a very physical confrontation. It was normal in the sense that there was friction after such a heated row at the start of this season.

What followed was the sad part, with both players engaging in petty Twitter arguments, trying to troll each other and turning a very serious issue about racism into two grown men acting like internet kids. If there was any seriousness in the situation at the start of the season, it has been lost with these two trying to act tough on a social media platform.