Barcelona winger Lamine Yamal has said he has experienced racism “a thousand times”, describing a pattern of comments and behaviour that he believes people do not recognise as offensive.
Speaking in an interview with the broadcaster Movistar, the 19-year-old said such treatment had been a regular feature of his rise to prominence in the game. “A thousand times. People are indirectly racist toward you, but maybe don’t realise it,” he said. “There are a lot of comments or looks that are racist and they don’t even notice.”
Yamal drew a distinction between the words themselves and the intent behind them. He said being called Black would not bother him in itself – “ultimately I’m Black, I’m not any other colour” – and that what matters is whether a term is being used to cause offence. He also said he would not allow hostility from the stands to unsettle him during a match, pointing out that spectators who buy a ticket to watch him play are still turning out to see him. “But if I’m playing a match and they paid for a ticket to see me, I’m not going to get angry just because they disrespected me,” he said.
His account comes after a warning earlier this year from the Spanish Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia, a government agency, which identified Yamal and the Real Madrid winger Vinicius Jr as the most frequent targets of online racist abuse in Spain during the final quarter of 2025.
Yamal has also been directly affected inside stadiums. He was among the Barcelona players targeted with racist abuse during the El Clasico meeting with Real Madrid at the Bernabeu in October 2024.
The winger was part of the Spain squad that won the World Cup in July. He made his Barcelona debut as a 15-year-old and has won La Liga three times since.