Serie A: Tribunal postpones racism decision, fines Kean for diving instead

What's the story?

Despite a great deal of outcry against the racial abuse Moise Kean received against Cagliari on Tuesday, with many fans wanting there to be more severe and swift punishments handed out to those found guilty, Serie A's disciplinary tribunal have postponed a decision regarding the alleged racist insults and instead opted to fine Kean for diving in the same game.

In case you didn't know...

In Juventus' 2-0 win over Cagliari on Tuesday, the game was marred by "monkey chants" along with jeers and whistles aimed primarily at Moise Kean, the young centre-forward who scored the second goal. In his celebration, he ran over to the crowd that had been shouting insults at him with his arms outstretched.

The situation was exacerbated by Kean's teammate, Leonardo Bonucci making comments to Sky Italia after the match in which he said that the blame was to be shared "50-50" between the racist crowd and Kean for the incident that had occurred.

This sparked public outcry and Bonnano was lambasted by footballers, past and present, for his words. He has since claimed that he was misunderstood but nobody appears to have taken back what they said about him.

The heart of the matter

The tribunal fined the 19-year-old striker 2,000 euros (£1,718) for diving in the first half, for which he was given a yellow card. This is a fair punishment for a move that broke the rules, but what has irked many of the fans is that the disciplinary board have not prioritised the racist incident.

But the tribunal has responded to these claims by saying that they had asked for more information from the match delegates and public authorities, which they are yet to analyse.

"[We need] to establish in which phases of the match [Matuidi and Kean] were the target of chantng which could be considered racial discrimination.

They also said that they needed to determine "the real dimension and perception" of the racist abuse before making a formal decision on the incident.

What next?

Some reports have suggested that a decision will be made on the alleged racist abuse by the end of the month. People aren't happy with the amount of time it might take for punishment to be served, but they all hope that it will be enough to put off other potential perpetrators in the future, rather than the slap-on-the-wrist fines that do very little.