Martial Receives Fresh Online Racial Abuse

High-profile football players, managers and match officials are no strangers to receiving racial abuse on social media, and Manchester United forward, Anthony Martial is the latest victim.

The 25-year-old forward has been targeted in a series of disgusting racist posts online – this is the second spate of abuse in 3 weeks.

The French international has struggled for goals this season. He was substituted with Mason Greenwood after 66 minutes of Man United’s 1-1 draw against West Brom on Sunday, 15 February.

After the match, and his side’s disappointing performance, hateful messages – including different racial symbols such as the abhorrent gorilla emoji – flooded Martial’s Instagram account as comments on his posts.

Although Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, confirmed the removal of these posts, they refused to ban a user who racially abused Swansea’s Yan Dhanda, last week.

Instead, Facebook decided to just temporarily suspend the account, saying they believe in granting users the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

However, the company has also announced new measures to try to bring an end to online abuse, owing to the increasing number of racist attacks on footballers online.

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