«A rotten banana as a Christmas present from Benetton teammates»- Corriere.it

An unwelcome gift. With a racist flavor. Cheriff Traor, prop originally from Guinea who plays for our national team, was shocked to have received a rotten banana as a Christmas present. But not by anyone, but by an unknown participant in the Christmas dinner of the Benetton teammates which took place according to the rule of Secret Santa in which everyone receives a gift from another without knowing who was the author of the gift.

Upon opening the package, the bitter surprise. Here’s how the player himself tells the story in a post on Instagram: Christmas is coming and, as usual, it’s time for the Secret Santa in the team. A convivial and playful moment. A moment where you can afford to give anonymous gifts to your companions, even pungent, ironic ones. Yesterday, when it was my turn, I found a banana inside my present. A rotten banana, inside a garbage bag. Besides the fact that I consider the gesture offensive, the thing that hurt me the most is seeing most of my companions present laughing. As if everything was normal.
A difficult moment to face and which made the event bitter for him. He wanted to run away from there leaving those people he considered friends. In his own words: I’m used to, or rather, I’ve had to get used to, having to put on a brave face every time I hear racist jokes to try not to antagonize the people around me anyway. Yesterday was different for. Fortunately, some comrades, especially foreigners, have tried to support me. Outside Italy, a gesture like this is seriously condemned even within small realities, and this time I want to have my say. I haven’t slept all night.
Precisely for this reason he wanted to make the event public, to give a signal to a world, that of sport, in which racism is still too often at home: To this Secret Santa there were also young boys of different origins. I have decided not to be silent this time to ensure that episodes like this do not happen again to prevent other people from finding themselves in my current situation in the future. And hoping the sender learns a lesson….