• Three paintings of monkeys put on display at league’s HQ • Anti-discrimination group Fare labels campaign ‘a sick joke’

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Serie A has received widespread condemnation after artwork for an anti-racism campaign comprised three paintings of monkeys.

The three works were created by Simone Fugazzotto and will be on permanent display at the league’s headquarters in Milan. The league said the images are intended to “spread the values of integration, multiculturalism and brotherhood”.

Balotelli returned to Italy with hope. It has been crushed again by racism Read more

The anti-discrimination group Fare tweeted: “Once again Italian football leaves the world speechless. In a country in which the authorities fail to deal with racism week after week, #SerieA have launched a campaign that looks like a sick joke.”

Italian football has been blighted by monkey chants and other incidents of racist abuse this season, with Brescia’s Mario Balotelli and Internazionale’s Romelu Lukaku among players targeted.

The Chelsea player Anita Asante tweeted: “@SerieA_EN You guys need to have a good look at yourselves. What is wrong with you? How many [people] looked at this commissioned artwork and signed off on this?”

“Fantastic to see Serie A anti-racism campaign posters (yes, it’s really real),” tweeted the former England forward Stan Collymore. “Maybe get the mascots to black up as a finishing touch.”

Announcing the new project, the Serie A chief executive, Luigi de Siervo, said: “Football is an extraordinary tool for conveying positive messages, fair play and tolerance. Simone’s paintings fully reflect these values and will remain on show in our headquarters.”

Fugazzotto said the work was intended to show “we are complex and fascinating creatures that we can be sad or happy, Catholics, Muslims or Buddhists, but that, after all, our actions determine who we are, not the colour of the skin.

“I only paint monkeys as a metaphor for human beings. We turn the concept back on the racists, as we are all monkeys originally. So I painted a western monkey, an Asian monkey and a black monkey.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An image released by Serie A, using the three paintings created by Fugazzotto. Photograph: Simone Fugazzotto/Reuters

The artist added he was inspired after the Napoli centre-back Kalidou Koulibaly was subjected to racist abuse at Inter last season.

“I got so angry that ... I got an idea,” Fugazzotto said. “Why not stop censoring the word monkey in football but turn the concept around and say instead that in the end we’re all apes?”

The artworks are the latest questionable response in Italy to repeated calls to clamp down on racial abuse. Two weeks ago the Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport was criticised for using the headline “Black Friday” on its front page, alongside images of Lukaku and Roma’s Chris Smalling. Roma and Milan banned reporters from the publication until the end of the year, which led the newspaper to describe its treatment as a “lynching”.

The Brescia chairman, Massimo Cellino, attracted criticism in November for saying Balotelli “is black and working to whiten himself.” In September, the TV pundit Luciano Passirani was sacked after saying the only way to stop Lukaku was to “give him 10 bananas to eat”.

Last month, all 20 Serie A clubs signed an open letter that called on “all those who love Italian football” to unite to try to eradicate its “serious problem with racism”.

As part of the new initiative, every top-flight club has put forward a player to join the league’s new anti-racism team. Koulibaly will represent Napoli, with other notable names including Blaise Matuidi (Juventus), Kevin Prince-Boateng (Fiorentina), Joaquin Correa (Lazio) and Gervinho (Parma).