Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Romelu Lukaku could face further discipline for the heated confrontation in the recent Coppa Italia quarter-final as the Federation officially opened an investigation on the incident on Monday. Both were booked and the Inter forward will miss tonight’s match against Juventus due to yellow-card accumulation. The Swedish star in particular, who was later sent off, risks to be suspended in Serie A, Sky Sport reports.
Referee Paolo Valeri will be asked to offer his recollection of the dispute by the prosecutor. In the game-day report, he wrote down that he showed both players a yellow card for the verbal and physical exchange, but he did not go further because he did not fully hear what they said in those moments.
The detail opens up the possibility for the sports justice to intervene in the matter as it was later found out analyzing the tape that Ibrahimovic made a reference to some voodoo rituals, while Lukaku heavily insulted the opponent and his relatives.
If the inquire is not dismissed after the initial phase, the judges will have to decide if what Ibrahimovic said constitutes a racist remark, for which he could be suspended for ten Coppa Italia games or for a certain period of time, which would sideline him in League play.
The rulebook indicates that a behavior is considered discriminatory if it constitutes an offense, a denigration or an insult that is directly or indirectly related to the race, color, religion, language, sex, nationality, origin or social condition of a person.