Arsenal have condemned the racist social media abuse directed at their player Bukayo Saka and some of his England team-mates in the wake of the Euro 2020 final defeat to Italy.
Saka, along with Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho, missed penalties in the shoot-out defeat on Sunday night and their social media feeds were quickly filled with racially abusive posts.
The abuse has been condemned by the Football Association, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson saying “those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of themselves”.
“I share the anger at appalling racist abuse of our heroic players,” he wrote on Twitter.
“Social media companies need to up their game in addressing it and, if they fail to, our new Online Safety Bill will hold them to account with fines of up to 10 per cent of global revenue.”
The Prime Minister added: “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.”
Facebook – which owns Instagram – said it tries to remove harmful content as quickly as possible and encouraged people to use the tools it offers to block abuse.
“No one should have to experience racist abuse anywhere, and we don’t want it on Instagram,” a Facebook company spokesperson said.
“We quickly removed comments and accounts directing abuse at England’s footballers last night and we’ll continue to take action against those that break our rules.
“In addition to our work to remove this content, we encourage all players to turn on Hidden Words, a tool which means no one has to see abuse in their comments or DMs.
“No one thing will fix this challenge overnight, but we’re committed to keeping our community safe from abuse.”
Former England defender Gary Neville was unsurprised by the racist abuse and criticised the leadership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“I’m just reading your breaking news and it says the ‘PM condemns racist abuse of England players’,” Neville told Sky News.
“Gareth Southgate and the players a few weeks ago, about five days on the trot, told us they were taking the knee to promote equality and it was against racism.
“The Prime Minister said it was OK for the population of this country to boo those players who were trying to promote equality and defend against racism. It starts at the very top.
“I wasn’t surprised in the slightest that I woke up to those headlines; I expected it the minute that the three players that missed missed.”
