The toll so far is four people arrested. The crime is that of having persecuted, with racist insults via Twitter and Instagram, the three players of the national team who missed their penalties on Sunday: Rashford, Sancho and Saka. At least one night in jail, and their defense appears to have been clinging to “My profile was hacked.”
England used a hard punch against those who insulted their black players from the start. From the night in prison to the ban on entering the stadium for fans who commit racist abuse online, Premier Boris Johnson’s commitment in recent days to strengthen the fight against all forms of discrimination in football. An online petition, addressed to the Football Association and the British government to punish racist fans with Daspo for life, has also stirred the waters, which has reached one million signatures.
The government in the crosshairs
But the British government was also targeted: defender Tyrone Mings accused Interior Minister Priti Patel of hypocrisy, after an outraged tweet at the racist insults: “You can’t stir the spirits at the start of the tournament by labeling our message anti-racist as a “politics of gestures” and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we are campaigning against happens ”. The accusation is Patel’s refusal to condemn the whistles of the fans against the choice of the English team to kneel before the kick-off.
The previous
Eight men suspected of tweeting racist slurs to South Korean Tottenham player Heung-min Son were arrested in May. Four other people had been questioned during the operation following Tottenham’s 3-1 defeat to Manchester United on 11 April. The 12 were “Suspected of publishing written material, using words or behaving in a way that incites racial hatred,” London police said. Thanks to the work of the police, these anonymous users on social media have been identified and found. An action that had already made it clear that racist attacks are not tolerated in England, even if they are committed online.