Newly promoted Hull City continue to ramp up their efforts to stay in the Premier League. Having started the new campaign with back-to-back wins, the Tigers have now signed 19-year-old French winger Robinio Vaz on loan from AS Roma.
The speedy yougster broke through at Olympique de Marseille, leading to a move to Italy in the winter transfer window. However, the lack of opportunities there meant Vaz has now made his way to England, with Hull even having a reported 30 million pounds buy option clause added to his contract.
As is modus operandi in 2026, Hull took to their socials to announce their 16th signing of the transfer window. The caption read a simple “Vaz is here!”, complete with a picture of the youngster in a Hull shirt against a plain black background with a few flare edits.
Little did the club know that mere hours later, they would be at the receiving end of wide-ranging racism accusations.
Fans were quick to point out that the image used for Vaz’s welcome carried undertones of discrimination on the basis of skin tone, albeit unintentionally.
Vaz is of Bissau-Guinean and Senegalese heritage, and is even eligible to represent the latter in international football. Naturally, he thus has a high concentration of melanin in his system and consequently has a dark skin tone.
Unfortunately, that meant Vaz’ face seemed to merge with the dark background in the picture. His orange hair and jersey only made the lack of contrast between the background and him look worse.
The spot lighting, with lack of a filler light to go with it, meant Vaz undoubtedly appeared darker than he would have in a natural surrounding. It also highlighted his lips more, which again added to the incongruity with his skin colour.
As the final nail in the coffin, Hull decided it was a good idea to under expose the image in order to add a grunge element of dynamism to the graphic. Combined with the white flares around him, and Vaz appeared to be straight out of a comic book (and not in a good way).
While inherently there may not be much wrong with the picture, the graphical enhancement of it is one of the many subtle ways racism has propagated through generations.
During the 19th and 20th century, ‘blackface’ became a common part of American and other western cultures. It involved white people painting their faces black using burnt cork, shoe polish, grease, or soot, while enhancing their lips with red paint.
Unfortunately, such depictions seem eerily similar to how Hull have managed to portray Vaz in their signing announcement.
The ‘blackfaces’ would then perform at ministrel shows prodding fun at black people and showcasing them as caricatures. The acts involved exaggerated and derogatory tropes in a torutorous time for the black people, since famously known as the ‘Jim Crow era’.
Ever since, institutions have taken cognizance that black people indeed have unique traits that require special care in depiction. Unfortunately, Hull City in this case missed the bus.
“The photographer’s got some real bad vibes, he set the brightness way too dark,” a comment on social media read.
Hull could have kept the stir from cropping up simply by using a brighter background. Or vetter, by using an image of Vaz in natural surroundings rather than using poorly designed studio lighting to highlight his innate differences.
“I feel sad, as I really think that a more diverse team would have spotted how this image may be perceived by those that are hateful. Black people and how we are depicted has often been pretty awful – under/over exposed, poor lighting, but this is next level,” a fan pointed out the same online.
Vaz has now been in the public limelight for more than a couple of years now. Yet, clubs so far have taken care in showcasing him such that it gives racist elements of society not much to feed upon, unlike Hull.
Fortunately for the Tigers’ fans, the club was quick to realize their mistake and make up for the same.
In the aftermath of the racist comments, Hull restricted their Twitter and Instagram response sections. However, realizing it was not enough, the club eventually deleted the original tweet.
Hull has since published a new batch of photos to welcome Vaz, showing him in much better light.
The dark shadows have been replaced by an orange hue, complenting Vaz’ skin well. Similarly, the solely black backgrounds have given way to vibrant backdrops with substantial volume of the club’s colours to truly accentuate Vaz’ features and not just his skin tone.
Welcome to the Tigers, Robinio! 🧡 pic.twitter.com/uqpyQtRR5m
— Hull City (@HullCity) September 2, 2026
The turnaround only adds to the positive work put in by Hull’s social media team this season, barring the one severe lapse with Vaz.
The club’s graphic designers have also had their work lauded through the season so far. Check out a collection of lineup, substitution and goal graphics Hull’s media team have created so far this season below –
As clubs race to build their brand identities in order to attract new fans, the Tigers have been on top of their game, showing they belong to the Premier League in more ways than one.
It should be noted that Hull themselves have been vocal about racism in the past. Their initiatives include running their own “Together Against Racism” campaigns.
For now, they’ll hope they can blow by the controversy when they travel to the Stadium of Light on Wednesday to take on Sunderland in the EFL Cup third round.
