Sancho: Racism killing love of the game
Jadon Sancho has warned that the rising number of racist incidents is threatening to kill players’ love of football. Sancho insists there are genuine concerns within the game over the damage being caused by racist abuse, with former Manchester United forward Romelu Lukaku the latest to be targeted.
Lukaku was abused by Cagliari fans while playing for his new club Inter Milan on Sunday, releasing a statement yesterday in which he claimed “we are going backwards” in dealing with the problem.
United’s Marcus Rashford and Paul Pogba, plus Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham, have suffered abuse on social media this season after missing penalties. Chelsea’s Kurt Zouma was also targeted after his own goal in the 2-2 draw against Sheffield United on Saturday.
“It has to stop. No player wants to play football and have abuse like that. It puts the confidence down in players and the love of the sport will go very soon if it doesn’t stop,” Sancho, the England and Borussia Dortmund winger, said.
“Everyone should be happy and do what they are doing without receiving racial abuse. I don’t think it is social media. Some fans are just really passionate and say what they want to say. They need to slow it down at bit – we’re still only human.
“It is hard to see things like this because it feels like, ‘why should we play football?’ I felt Romelu Lukaku handled it really well by not reacting and carrying on playing.”
Lukaku was subjected to racist monkey chants by Cagliari fans, but responded by scoring the winning penalty, then standing and staring at the supporters behind the goal.
Cagliari insisted they were committed to “annihilating one of the worst plagues that affects football and our world”.
Lukaku said on his Instagram account yesterday: “Many players in the last month have suffered from racial abuse… I did yesterday, too.
“Football is a game to be enjoyed and we shouldn’t accept any form of discrimination that will put our game in shame. It’s 2019 – instead of going forwards we’re going backwards. Social media platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) need to work better with football clubs because every day you see at least a racist comment under a post of a person of colour. We’ve been saying it for years and still no action.”
Twitter recently announced it planned to meet clubs and campaigning organisations to underline the “proactive work” being undertaken to combat racist abuse.