3:0 on the scoreboard: The World Cup bronze medal is in. This makes for many happy and beaming faces among the Italian volleyball players, but not for star player Paola Egonu. The 23-year-old diagonal player bursts into tears and they aren’t tears of joy.

Egonu’s emotions run deep. She doesn’t keep it dry even before the competition. “I sang the national anthem and cried because I was in pain from the insults and messages I received. It hurts inside.”

Her tears have everything to do with painful questions asked on social media during the World Cup. “They asked me if I was really Italian,” Egonu, who was born in Italy to Nigerian parents, told Italian TV channel Rai after the tournament.

Widely reported in the press

The racism against Egonu is big news in the Italian media. “She’s a well-known player, of course. The left-leaning newspapers are particularly shameful,” says NOS correspondent Heleen D’Haens, who also says racism in sport is a regular occurrence in Italy. “With the regularity of the clock comes another sad story like this.”

And even after the most recent elections, in which Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party became the largest, racism is not being fought in Italy, says D’Haens. “Here there are very conservative laws that make it very difficult to acquire Italian citizenship as a child of non-Italian parents,” the correspondent explains of institutional racism in the country.

“Many athletes who are very good and who have lived here since they were children are not allowed to represent Italy, for example. It can happen that you come here as a five-year-old child and are still waiting for Italian citizenship 30. And Meloni really has zero ambitions to tackle that.”

“The picture of doom she paints is that refugees who disembark on Lampedusa get an Italian passport, so to speak, immediately. There are movements here that stand up for victims of racism and give them a voice, but these tones are far from being reached. Everyone.”

Last game

In any case, the sound Egonu made after the Volleyball World Cup was loud and clear. “That was my last game, I’m tired,” she referred to duels in the Italian jersey. “The comments. They are read, they reach the players. It hurts. If I wear this shirt it’s because I believe in it and I feel Italian. Otherwise I wouldn’t be making any sacrifices to bring Italy to the top.”

The door is not completely closed yet. If the emotions of Egonu, who can smash a ball to the ground at 112.7 kilometers per hour and thus has the hardest attack in women’s volleyball, have subsided a little, then there is a certain nuance in her words.

“I have to judge with a cool head. I’m not saying it’s over because to say it’s over would mean I agree with them. This shirt is an honor for me.”

The President of the Italian Volleyball Federation, Giuseppe Manfredi, responded to Egonu’s words in a statement. “We are all very sorry about what happened to Paola.”

“We mustn’t forget that Paola has worn our blue jersey since the youth national teams and has brought us many great results. We now have a few months to talk to each other in peace,” concludes Manfredi.