Crotone of Italy striker, Simeon Tochukwu Nwankwo (Simy) has issued a philosophical yet scathing reaction to racist attack he suffered on social media last weekend, as he says such acts come only from ignorant people, megasportsarena.com reports.
In the wake of reports that the Super Eagles’ striker at Russia 2018 World Cup had become the latest African player to face racial slurs via the internet, ‘Simy’ declared that he will not allow the matter weigh him down.
However, the former Portugal-based lanky attacker admitted racism is an issue that bothers him a lot, even as the 28-year-old star shared screenshots of the abusive messages that were sent to him on Instagram after he scored in Saturday’s 3-2 home loss to Bologna.
It came barely two weeks after his Algerian team-mate, Adam Ounas, who is on loan from SSC Napoli, also received racist abuse online, in the wake of Crotone’s 4-2 win over Torino, much to the consternation of Simy, who is the top-scoring African in the Italian top flight.
The in-form striker, who has hit home 13 goals in 28 matches for Serie A bottom club, Crotone, added that social media abuse being directed at players is on the rise, then urged the authorities and online platforms to do more in order to identify the perpetrators.
Simy told BBC Sport Africa: “It’s sadly become a regular occurrence on social media but these hateful words have no place anywhere in society. You can see it’s coming from ignorant [people]. We cannot let racist and hateful abuse become a normalised part of the game.
“I can’t believe how many of these unspeakable messages, from different users, send racist abuse at footballers. We can only hope that more efforts will be put in to ensure the general public and not just footballers feel safe on social media platforms.”
