3 Star Players for England’s National Team Face Online Racist Abuse After Missing Their Penalty Kick

Astoundingly, after 3 star players for England’s national soccer team missed their penalty kicks in the final against Italy, they faced a tremendous amount of online racist abuse. It wasn’t commentary or negativity based upon their performance or missing the penalty kicks – it was focused on the fact that they have different colored skin than those criticizing them.

Absolutely astounding, but also eye-opening, that this would occur. That English fans of the England national team would criticize their own national team players who represent their nation, based entirely on their race, is shocking.

On top of feeling downcast at having missed their penalty kicks in the final of the Euro 2020, these players had to face outright racial abuse. For us armchair quarterbacks (and former strikers, etc.) it is one thing to criticize a professional player’s performance, while online; it is quite another thing to racially abuse them. The situation became so egregious that Prince William spoke up over the issue, as did Boris Johnson (PM of of the UK).

It was encouraging to see that the Football Association in England asked the government to create legislation that would make online racial abuse a criminal offense, and also asked online social media companies to do more in terms of identifying and removing people who make these types of posts.

I’ve said it before, but if these people are this comfortable making racist posts on worldwide social media, just what do they say in private and amongst themselves?