LaLiga president apologizes for rant at Vinicius Jr

STORY: The game against Valencia on Sunday was halted for 10 minutes as Brazilian Vinicius pointed out fans who were abusing him before he was involved in an altercation with Valencia players which led to him being sent off.

"Well, it seems that the result has not been very good, right?," Tebas told Reuters in an interview, referring to his much-criticized comments on Twitter in which he suggested that Vinicius find out more about what the league is doing to combat racism "before you criticize and slander LaLiga".

"I mean, to all those who have understood that this was an error due to the form, due to the time...I have to apologize," he said, adding that it was not his intention to attack Vinicius and blaming "the heat of the moment".

"I apologize to Vinicius and to anyone that understood that I was attacking Vinicius."

Tebas said he shared the 22-year-old's frustration over the lack of action to eradicate racism in Spain, and took aim at soccer organizers and Spanish authorities, saying neither were doing enough to clamp down on racism.

He said that he felt "impotent" to tackle racism in soccer as under Spanish law, LaLiga can only detect and report racist incidents, urging legislative changes for it to have sanctioning powers to be able to fight racism more effectively.

"If we were given those capabilities, we would end this in a matter in months," Tebas said, blaming a lack of willingness by "those who have the power to impose it".

Valencia's south stand will be partially closed for five matches and the club was fined 45,000 euros ($50,000) after abuse suffered by Vinicius.