Liverpool beat Chelsea in the UEFA Super Cup on August 14 in a trophy match that had to be settled with a penalty kick shoot out. The ending in Istanbul came when Blues striker Tammy Abraham missed his spot kick, and the Reds won the shoot out 5-4, after it had finished 2-2 after regulation and extra time.
He was then subjected to horrific racist abuse online, a trend that has seen an alarming surge lately. “I remember speaking to my mum, she was emotional, she was in tears,” the 21-year-old said to CNN International.
“You know, she’s just thinking: ‘Why him? Why him?’ It’s obviously not nice to hear, especially seeing your son getting abused.”
“For me, I’m always a strong character, it doesn’t affect me as much. But saying that, it could affect people who don’t have my personality.”
Racism, prejudice and bigotry are major problems, worldwide, across society in general. Unfortunately, hate only seems to be on the rise lately and we’ve certainly seen it in the football world since the season began. In addition to Abraham, Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Kurt Zouma have also been victims of racial abuse online.
Twitter has said they are taking steps to combat this, but just last week Rashford called out their efforts as insufficient. Abraham agrees that the social media app is not going far enough.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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