Chilean international and ex-Barcelona player Arturo Vidal has been heavily criticised for his vile comments about the suicide of Robert Enke on social media platform, Twitch. The player took to Twitch to connect with fans as he looked back at his career.
However, things got really disturbing when Vidal discussed his first goal in Europe. The goal was scored on September 23, 2007 in a match where Bayer Leverkusen came up against Hannover, the club for which Robert Enke was the goalkeeper.
According to some people, Vidal made a disgraceful and pathetic statement while commenting on his first goal in Europe. He has been accused made fun of the German goalkeeper, who had depression and tragically died after throwing himself under a moving train at the age of 32.
Vidal jokes about Enke’s death by suicide
Vidal said: “I scored my first goal in Europe against Hannover. Their goalkeeper fell into depression and ultimately even took his own life!”. This comment received a lot of criticism mostly in Germany.
Robert Enke was considered as a very promising goalkeeper. He was a part of the Barcelona squad from 2002 to 2004. In November 2009, he committed suicide close to his house, in Neustadt Germany.
His mental health problems began when he was at Barcelona and Fenerbahçe. He suffered from a big fear of failure. His mental condition further worsened in 2006 with the passing away of his 2 year old girl due to heart problems.
Vidal justifies his statement
Vidal later defended himself: “I told this anecdote, but I never meant it badly.”
The 36 year old Chilean who currently plays for Brazilian club Athletico Paranaense, opened up on his Twitch stream some time later.
In his stream, he defended himself: “To all the spiteful journalists: You saw in this video that I said everything with good intentions and nothing bad. I didn’t laugh either, I would never do that.”
Vidal further said: “I told this anecdote, but I never meant it in a bad way. I would never laugh at something like that.”
