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Dani Alves (file pic).
Looking Back

Dani Alves hits out at Parisian life: 'They’re f***ing racists'

The ex-PSG star said that life in the French capital was ‘stressful’ and that he preferred the atmosphere in Barcelona or Seville.

DANI ALVES HAS revealed that he did not like living in Paris, branding the locals “f*cking racists”.

The 36-year-old right-back departed the French capital in the summer after spending a couple of seasons with Paris Saint-Germain but is now in his homeland of Brazil with Sao Paulo.

He has said, however, that he did not enjoy life in the City of Lights, where he played 48 Ligue 1 matches and scored a couple of goals.

“It’s a stressful city,” he told GQ magazine. “I didn’t like it much.

“If you go to Paris for a week, it will be the trip of your life, but any longer than that and it gets tiring.

“It reminds me a bit of Sao Paulo, but there, they are f*cking racists. A lot of them. 

They didn’t say anything to me because I would have old them to go and f*ck themselves, but I saw it towards my friends.”

During his career, he was notably the victim of racism while playing at Villarreal. A supporter threw a banana at him, to which he responded by peeling it and taking a bite.

He later commented: “We have suffered this in Spain for some time. You have to take it with a dose of humour. We aren’t going to change things easily. If you don’t give it importance, they don’t achieve their objective.”

Having also spent time in Barcelona and Seville during his illustrious career, he says he preferred those Latin cities.

“The people there look Brazilian, live out on the street and have a cool energy,” he said. “They’re very up front, but I prefer people to be like that than the opposite.”

Alves began his career with Bahia, where he spent a couple of years before moving to Europe with Sevilla. Having shone at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan with his swashbuckling offensive play, he switched to Barcelona, where he was a member of the squad that swept all before them under Pep Guardiola.

A year with Juventus followed, but he struggled to find his best form in Turin and quickly moved on to Paris, where he spent a couple of seasons before moving back to his homeland.

Ryan Bailey steps into the presenter’s chair where he’s joined by Murray Kinsella and Eoin Toolan on the line for Japan to tee up one of the biggest, if not the biggest week in Irish rugby: a World Cup quarter-final against back-to-back champions New Zealand.


The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud

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