Alves peels banana and opens debate

A Villarreal fan throwing a banana at Barcelona’s Dani Alves last weekend may have – inadvertently – helped the battle against a deeply-rooted problem of racism in Spanish football.

Most people now know that Alves picked up the banana, peeled it and ate it, mainly because of the phenomenally successful ‘#weareallmonkeys’ campaign started by fellow Brazilian Neymar immediately after the game.

High profile stars including Sergio Aguero, David Luiz and Mario Balotelli quickly got involved in the ‘banana selfie’ movement, which had been planned in advance in consultation with marketing experts. Support even came from Brazil president Dilma Rousseff and UN secretary general Ban-Ki Moon.