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Erling Haaland Sends Powerful Message After Seeing England Players Suffer Racial Abuse

Erling Haaland Sends Powerful Message After Seeing England Players Suffer Racial Abuse

Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were all subjected to vile racial abuse after missing in the shoot-out.

Josh Lawless

Josh Lawless

Erling Haaland has strongly condemned the racial abuse suffered by England players who missed penalties in the Euro 2020 final shoot-out defeat to Italy.

England lost 3-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw at Wembley, with Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka all failing to convert from 12 yards.

The Three Lions' historic achievement of getting to a first major final in 55 years was massively overshadowed by the vile racial abuse all three were subjected to on social media.

Image: PA
Image: PA

And Haaland, who is close with Sancho and played with him at Borussia Dortmund, took to Twitter to issue a powerful statement that hit the nail on the head.

"I don't understand why there is still room for racism and discrimination," the Norwegian wrote.

"We will never tire of fighting against any form of discrimination. Instead of being applauded for having the courage to take the penalties, these young men are attacked with racist insults. I am speechless."

The social media accounts of the England trio were flooded with racist terms and monkey emojis shortly after the game, with the FA slamming the disgraceful abuse.

"We could not be clearer that anyone behind such disgusting behaviour is not welcome in following the team," the FA said in a statement.

"We will do all we can to support the players affected while urging the toughest punishments possible for anyone responsible.

"We will continue to do everything we can to stamp discrimination out of the game, but we implore government to act quickly and bring in the appropriate legislation so this abuse has real life consequences.

"Social media companies need to step up and take accountability and action to ban abusers from their platforms, gather evidence that can lead to prosecution and support making their platforms free from this type of abhorrent abuse."

Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the abuse "appalling" but he and the government were accused of hypocrisy by former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville.

Speaking on Sky News, Neville called out the PM for "promoting" racism by not condemning those who booed the England players taking the knee in gesture promoting equality

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Racism, Euro 2020, Erling Haaland, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Borussia Dortmund, Jadon Sancho