Bukayo Sako, 19, Marcus Rashford,23, and Jadon Sancho,21, three Black players for England’s national soccer team all missed penalty kicks in the Euro championship game on July 11^th against Italy at London England’s Wembley Stadium, and were subjected to racist attacks online.

Twitter removed 1,000 posts and “permanently suspended a number of accounts.”  Facebook added that it deleted “vile comments” from Instagram which it owns.

England was defeated 3-2 by Italy.

The English Football Association issued a statement and said: “We will do all we can to support the players affected while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible.  We will continue to do everything we can to stamp discrimination out of the game, but we implore government to act quickly and bring in the appropriate legislation, so this abuse has real life consequences.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted “This England team deserve to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media.  Those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves.”

Johnson and others had been asked to condemn fans who booed players for taking a knee before kick-off.

The English team tweeted: “We’re disgusted that some of our squad—who have given everything for the shirt this summer—have been subjected to discriminatory abuse online . . ..  We stand with our players.”

Prince William, president of England’s Football (soccer) Association tweeted he was “sickened by the racist abuse. . .  It must stop now and all those involved should be held accountable.”

Rashford has spoken out in the past about the racist abuse he has received from soccer fans and tweeted in response to the racist abuse, the defacing of a mural of him in his hometown of Manchester, England, and the positive responses he received on July 12^th : “I’ve grown into a sport where I expect to read things written about myself.  I can take critique of my performance all day long, my penalty was not good enough, it should have gone in but I will never apologise for who I am and where I came from.”

Earlier this year Rashford said the racist abuse he receives from soccer fans is “humanity and social media at its worst.”

Musa Okwonga, an English soccer writer tweeted from the game as soon as the abuse started:  “Hate is a strong word.  But the racists relying on Black English footballers to bring them glory as if they were their servants, then turning on them as soon as they fell short of their dreams, have my deepest contempt.”

London’s Metropolitan Police is investigating the attacks on Instagram and Twitter.

NPR, CNN and The Wall Street Journal were sources for this story.

Isabelle Price

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