A soccer fan's Dani Alves banana insult over the weekend has inadvertently sparked a social media campaign against racism.
It all started Sunday during FC Barcelona's La Liga match against Atletico Madrid at Villarreal. Alves, a Barcelona defender, was lining up a corner kick when a Madrid fan threw a banana on the field — a racist insult meant to imply that Alves is a "monkey."
But, without missing a beat, Alves picked up the banana, stuffed it in his mouth, and proceeded on with the game.
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"We have suffered this in Spain for some time," Alves told reporters after his team's 3-2 win over Madrid. "You have to take it with a dose of humor. We aren't going to change things easily. If you don't give it importance, they don't achieve their objective."
According to the U.K.'s Telegraph, the offender was kicked out of the venue and slapped with a lifetime stadium ban. Fifa president Sepp Blatter later denounced the banana insult, calling it an "outrage."
Twitter users immediately came to Alves' defense and, in a showing of solidarity, posted photos online of themselves with bananas.
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