Tavernier: Stand up to racism
JAMES TAVERNIER revealed every black player at Rangers has suffered online racial abuse this season.
The Ibrox skipper has demanded more action to tackle racism on social media as he opened up on the extent of hatred levelled at footballers in 2021.
Rangers and Celtic stood united ahead of yesterday’s derby draw at Parkhead in the wake of the racial abuse aimed at Glen Kamara by Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela in midweek.
And home captain Scott Brown embraced the Finland star during the warm-up.
Both clubs agreed they would not take the knee ahead of the fixture, with Tavernier adamant a stronger message is now required.
He said: “We took a knee to send out a message but we believe that message isn’t strong enough.
“What we did was stand up to send out a bigger message that we need action on these things that are occurring regularly now.
“You saw the situation on Thursday and that is going to get taken care of.
“But I feel confident saying all our black players have received racial abuse this season. That’s from social media platforms and this is a key message to them.
“Action has to be taken. Enough is enough. It’s happening all around the game. People sit behind keyboards, computers or phones racially abusing players. We have just had enough of it.”
The Premiership champions were under the cosh at times but an Alfredo Morelos goal was enough to earn a point and maintain an unbeaten league record.
Steven Gerrard said: “It was all set for someone to go and grab it and win it.
“But we’re away from home, we’re the champions, we’ve taken seven points out of nine in Old Firm games, we’re still 20 points clear – this is a more positive result for us than it is for them.”