According to Sky Sports Italy, Zlatan Ibrahimovic assured his AC Milan teammates that his comments to Romelu Lukaku during a heated tight were not racist, in fury that overshadowed the Coppa Italia tie.
The report details that Ibrahimovic made this clear in the dressing room after the match, as he also apologised for being sent off in Milan’s quarter-final defeat to their heated rivals.
Lukaku and Ibrahimovic clashed after the Inter man’s angry reaction to a challenge from Milan skipper Alessio Romagnoli, once their head-to-head ended some unsavoury insults were traded.
As we’ve detailed, Ibrahimovic called his ex-Manchester United teammate a ‘little donkey’ as he referenced the practice of ‘voodoo’ whilst now appearing to tell Lukaku to ‘call’ his ‘mother’.
It was the talk of Lukaku’s mother that left the Belgian incensed, as he shouted ‘you want to speak about my mother!’ to Ibrahimovic whilst the teams were walking away at halftime as he was restrained.
That moment also saw Lukaku burst out with ‘I will shoot you in the head’ as he was marshalled off the pitch and steered away from fighting Ibrahimovic.
Sky Italy report that Ibrahimovic’s bizarre ‘voodoo’ comments were in fact reference to the summer which saw Lukaku transfer from Everton to Manchester United, with a return to Chelsea also close.
This was reported by the Guardian at the time, Everton’s majority owner Farhad Moshiri shockingly claimed that Lukaku decided against a new contract as a result of a ‘voodoo’ message.
Even those claims have to be taken with a pinch of salt as Moshiri believed the so-called voodoo practice suggested Lukaku ‘needs to go to Chelsea’ but as we all know he ended up at Man United.