Inter defender Cristian Chivu was a very naughty boy last May and Serie A officials haven’t forgot about his saucy behavior in the Coppa Italia final. After defeating the Giallorossi 1-0 at the Olimpico to finish the season, Chivu was accused of “repeatedly making vulgar gestures to the fans of the opposing team” by the league’s board and the footballer has been fined $11,000 dollars for the incident and could possibly see some type of suspension for the incident. Chivu is expected to meet with Serie A officials before the end of the week.
Apparently when the final whistle of the match blew, Chivu ran towards the Roma section of the crowd and continually made crude gestures towards the fans before joining his team in celebration. Chivu did apogize weeks after the incident happened for making the insulting gestures, but considering that Inter won the trophy it was an especially sour moment for the Roma fans.
Chivu left the following statement on the club’s official website following the incident:
I could give you plenty of motivations to explain or justify what was an instinctive gesture. But when one makes a mistake, they just have to apologise. And I’m saying sorry.
And in sports with all of the testosterone and competitive fire these types of things happen. In fact I’m surprised they don’t happen more often then they already do, but on the other hand when a player is attacking fans I think that makes it much worse. I’m sure some of the fans were deserving of the insult, but players need to block that out as hard as it might be and play the game the way they get paid.
In an NFL game the average player would be fined at least $50,000 dollars for that type of incident that involves repeated abuse of the fans via hand gestures and the player would likely be suspended for a game as well. It will be interesting to see if Chivu misses any time due to the incident, but considering it happened last May I’d say he doesn’t have too much to worry about because the penalty is already coming so late into the season with such a low fine considering the act performed.
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