Marcus Rashford & Jesse Lingard Send a Message to Tammy Abraham Following an Online Racial Abuse

Fellow England footballers, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard came out in suppport of Tammy Abraham after the Chelsea striker was reported to have been subjected to racial abuse on social media.

Both Rashford and Lingard went to their twitter handles for a kind gesture towards the 21-year old Chelsea academy graduate.

A tweet from Rashford’s twitter handle read, “Keep your head held high Tammy Abraham. We’ve all had them saved, that’s football. We should be celebrating young English talent not this…” while Lingard was seen to have tweeted, “Head up brother stand strong stand proud.”

The reports of the racial abuse came out following the exciting UEFA Super Cup match between Chelsea and Liverpool, where Chelsea eventually lost on account of a penalty missed by Abraham.

“Last night we received reports of racist abuse directed at Tammy Abraham on social media after Chelsea’s UEFA Super Cup match,” a statement from Kick It Out read.

“Such abuse is now increasingly predictable, but no less disgusting. “We send our support to Tammy and reiterate our calls for Twitter and other social media companies to clamp down on this level of abuse.

“This is a call to action – we want to know what they are going to do to tackle this insidious problem.”

In response to the online incident, a Chelsea statement said that the club will take “strongest possible action” against the guilty.

“We are disgusted with the abhorrent posts we have seen on social media. Chelsea FC finds all forms of discriminatory behaviour unacceptable,” a Chelsea spokesperson was quoted as saying by SkySports.

“It has no place at this club and where there is clear evidence of Chelsea season ticket holders or members involved in such behaviour, we will take the strongest possible action against them.”

Following the incident, Twitter said in a statement that the social media platform will be trying hard to eradicate such hateful comments. Twitter, according to a spokesperson, has a hateful content policy wherein users cannot promote violence or harass people.

In a statement issued to the Press Association, a Twitter spokesperson said, “We continue to take action on any account that violates the Twitter Rules.”

“We welcome people to freely express themselves on our service, however, as outlined in our Hateful Conduct Policy, users cannot promote violence against, threaten or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity or other protected groups.

“We remain deeply committed to improving the health of the conversation on the service and in that respect we continue to prioritise the safety of our users.”

Increasing Racist abuse in English football-

According to a report released by Kick It Out in July, racism in English football rose by 43 per cent – from 192 to 274 – last season.

When considering all forms of discrimination, which includes faith based discrimination, sexual orientation related discrimination among others, reports in the professional game rose by 46 per cent to 313 from the previous season, with an outcome received in 62 per cent of cases.

This is certainly a problem that needs a look in, considering the way it can affect certain minds.