THEY PROFIT FROM RACISM
Chelsea star accuses social media giants after more players hit by terrible abuse
ANTONIO RUDIGER is the latest high-profile Premier League star to reveal he has suffered ‘immense’ racist abuse on social media, prompting Chelsea to launch an investigation, which could result in police action and see some of their own fans banned from the club.
As pressure grows on social media companies from football and the Government to take responsibility for hate speech on their platforms, Rudiger revealed he had been racially abused on social media by Chelsea fans who blamed him for being influential in the sacking of Frank Lampard’, a claim which Rudiger says is ‘nonsense’.
But the German says he does not expect Twitter and other social media companies will do anything to stop the abuse as he thinks they are more concerned about money than morals.
It comes after Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe, Antony Martial, Chelsea’s Reece James, Southampton’s Alexandre Jankewitz, and WBA’s Romaine Sawyers have all reported that they had been racially abused on social media.
Police are investigating, with a man having been arrested in the Sawyers case and Chelsea have passed evidence to the police in James’ case and will do so on behalf of Rudiger as well.
Football League clubs are considering a week-long boycott of Twitter, while West Ham’s vicechairman Karren Brady has condemned Twitter for evading their responsibilities, as the Government prepare legislation which could see tech firms fined billions of pounds if they fail to root out illegal and vitriolic abuse.
Asked whether he had a message for Chelsea fans who blamed him for Lampard’s exit, Rudiger said: ‘What I can say is people should be human beings. I didn’t post anything about this but the racial abuse was immense.
‘This makes me stronger, I know who I am. I can look in the mirror, I can smile. I can put my hand up. I know I didn’t do anything. So for me, this is forgotten. If people are still on that [racially abusing people], at the end of the day I cannot control people and their emotions and I don’t want to.
‘It’s sad. But it is what it is. At the end of the day, in life, for me it’s very important that I can look in the mirror.
‘That’s the most important thing. I see myself. I know who I am. As I said before, with other people, their emotions, I cannot control it. I don’t want to control it.
‘They can say what they want. Of course, it hurts but in this case I just block this out because I know
who I am and I didn’t do anything.’ Asked if he thought Twitter and the biggest tech companies would act to protect people from racial abuse on their platforms, Rudiger said: ‘To be very honest, I don’t know about all these social media things.
‘Because at the end of the day, if more people are making accounts, I think they make money off it.
‘So, me personally, I don’t think these people care. For, as you know, this money has power. And the rest doesn’t matter.
‘It’s hard to tell if people will make a change on that. I feel sorry for that. But I feel more sorry for people who are not strong enough, if really affects them this type of stuff.
‘Of course it affects me in a way too but for me, it’s just to think people are not normal. People are, sorry to say, stupid.’
Rudiger again explained that he had no part of in Lampard’s sacking: ‘It’s my fourth season in the club and so far I had four coaches. My conscience is clear. I know who I am. I know I didn’t do all of that nonsense that came out. In my head I’m very free.
‘I am open for every new coach as I was open also to Mr Lampard.’
The club have also dismissed reports that player power had anything to do with Lampard’s dismissal.
Rudiger’s stances is now being supported by Chelsea, whose owner Roman Abramovich wrote to each player last week, expressing his dismay at the racism James and others had suffered and promising to invest funds to address the issue.
Chelsea are in the process of determining how best that might be done but have vowed to report any identifiable individuals to police. Last year, the club banned a fan for life after ruling he had racially abused Raheem Sterling.
Chelsea winger Callum Hudson-Odoi has also spoken out after it was reported that Premier League clubs had been informed by Twitter that using the monkey emojis didn’t constitute a violation of their rules.
Speaking to beIN Sports, Hudson-Odoi said: ‘How can that make sense? If somebody puts … a monkey emoji towards a player … why is that? How is a player a monkey? What does that mean to a player? So for us seeing stuff like that it always makes us angry. Are you saying that because of our skin colour?’
Hudson-Odoi also said that Abramovich’s letter had been well received by players.
He added: ‘It is good to see that the owner is trying to sort something out as soon as possible but certainly social media needs to step up and do something about it, because it’s very easy to go on social media and write something hateful to somebody without anything being done about it.’
The Government are in the process of preparing an Online Harms Bills, which plans to exact fines on tech companies of up to ten per cent of their annual global revenue if they do not comply with the new rules.