ON DAY HE WAS TARGET OF YOBS
SCOTT BURNS
SICKENED Funso Ojo admitted Champions League winner Georginio Wijnaldum stopped him from trying to fight with racist fans after they were subjected to monkey chants. The Aberdeen midfielder was just coming through the ranks at PSV Eindhoven in Holland when a game at ADO Den Haag left him emotionally scarred. Ojo played at full-back, Liverpool star Wijnaldum played in front of him and Dutch international Jermaine Lens on the right wing and all three took a torrent of racial abuse from the stands for 45 minutes. The Belgian admitted the incident reduced him to tears and he wanted to take on the racists but was urged to laugh it off by Wijnaldum and Lens. Ojo painfully recalled: “ADO Den Haag have a pretty hardcore fan base and on one side of the pitch, they’re not really fans of black people. “I was playing right-back, Wijnaldum was right midfield and Jermaine was right winger – so by chance all three of us were on the same side. “It was just a whole half of monkey chants. We just laughed it off but if it happened now we would have walked off the pitch. “But it was normal then. If we’d said s.burns@dailyrecord.co.uk anything at that time nothing would have happened. Did it hurt? Yes, of course it did. I am emotional about injustice and have been right up to crying about it.
“On the pitch, those guys were older. I was ready to fight but they had the experience and told me to laugh it off.
“They said we have better lives than them, they don’t know any better so just laugh it off and get on with the game.
“But as I said, I don’t think that would happen now because it’s taken more seriously.”
The 28-year-old knows a lot of time and work has gone into eradicating racism from football but he is well aware there is still a lot more that needs to be done, not only in the game but also in life.
Ojo hasn’t experienced it in Scotland but knows that Aberdeen team-mate Shay Logan has been a victim.
“Racism is still there in football,” Ojo insisted. “I have only experienced it in Holland but Shay has had it here in Scotland. It’s still there but now it gets condemned more.
“It’s better now that we don’t just brush it off and move on, which is what happened years ago.
“Ten years ago we laughed it off and a lot of people will say for too long we turned the other cheek and moved on but that’s the wrong way. “I can speak about Belgium because I don’t know the way it is here properly but hidden racism is so rife.”
The Black Lives Matter campaign has gathered real momentum on the back of the sad and needless death of George Floyd in the United States.
Ojo joined the protest in the Granite City while team-mate Greg Leigh was at another UK event.
The Dons star said: “The people of Aberdeen who showed up to the protest were great and I want to give a big shout out to them.
“It was good seeing that level of support in the city and seeing the reaction around the city. I met some people on the protest I see when I am walking my dog.
“When my missus and I went down it was quite early and there were already a lot of signs up, so that was good. The reaction was great.
“Greg and I spoke about it. There isn’t as much racism in Aberdeen as some other places. But it was good to see the awareness and the support.”
The Pittodrie team-mates also posted their support on Instagram and are delighted that it has already made an impact. “Racism and social injustice is something which should concern everyone,” said Ojo.
“After we posted what we did on Instagram, I got some nice responses including one from a mother of a mixedrace boy who has been getting bad experiences with racism at school.
“The way people speak about black people or people from other origins, it’s so normal. I have seen it because I was raised by a white family and always went to the pub with my uncle. “Everyone was always okay to me but there would be people from Africa come into the pubs to sell things. And you then heard how they spoke about them. “That always hurt and it shows how it’s so integrated and normal. That’s what we need to get rid of.”