“That’s what we expected and this is where, once again, you say ‘What can be done about it?'” “We all messaged each other and said, ‘Oh God, here we go.’ Because we know what’s around the corner,” Bright told the AP. Pull out your phone, find the handle of the player you want to abuse, and fire off a racist message.įormer Premier League striker Mark Bright, who is Black and regularly suffered racial abuse inside stadiums in the 1980s, was exchanging messages with friends on a WhatsApp group when those three Black players for England - Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho - missed penalties in a shootout loss to Italy in the 2020 European Championship final. The problem is, there’s barely any accountability and it’s so easy. More than a third were of a racist nature. Racism is the predominant form of abuse on social media reported to Kick It Out, an anti-discrimination campaigner in soccer, according to statistics compiled over the past three seasons in English soccer.Ī report last year from FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, showed that more than 50% of players competing in two international tournaments in 2021 - the African Cup of Nations and the European Championship - received some form of discriminatory abuse in more than 400,000 posts on social media. It’s a reminder of how some people actually see you.” “Just when you think everything is OK, it’s a reminder that it’s not. “Every time it happens, it knocks you back and floors you,” Onuoha told The Associated Press. Former soccer player Mark Bright speaks to Associated Press during an interview in London, Wednesday, May 3, 2023. It’s the latest form of racism: technology-fueled, visual, permanently intrusive and 24/7 - a haunting reminder of the 1980s-style monkey chants and banana-throwing in a social media era.Īnd it is spiraling out of control on platforms where anonymity is the golden ticket for racists. “It’s stupid,” said Nedum Onuoha, a retired Black player who was in the top divisions of English and U.S. The even sadder part? Everyone knew it was coming. Being subjected to a torrent of racial abuse on social media in the aftermath made it even worse. LONDON - Missing penalties in a major international soccer final was bad enough for three Black players on England’s national team.
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