By Wayne Lumbasi
France’s soccer superstars Kingsley Coman, Randal Kolo Muani and Aurelien Tchouameni were allegedly the subject of racial abuse online following the team’s loss to Argentina in the World Cup.
Coman and Tchouameni missed their opportunities to score in the penalty shootout while Kolo Muani was stopped in added time in the second half on a remarkable play from Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.
Some of the racist abuse Kingsley Coman is getting on Instagram tonight pic.twitter.com/JIUudhLRgZ
— Bayern & Die Mannschaft (@iMiaSanMia_en) December 18, 2022
Moments after the defeat, emojis of monkeys and apes flooded the Instagram accounts of both players. Following the racist remarks, Tchouameni reportedly briefly disabled his Instagram account.
Coman’s club team, Bayern Munich, responded to the racist remarks in a tweet on Monday morning:
FC Bayern strongly condemn the racist comments made towards Kingsley Coman.
— FC Bayern Munich (@FCBayernEN) December 19, 2022
The FC Bayern family is behind you, King. Racism has no place in sport or our society. pic.twitter.com/9Mvhrt0Zc9
The abuse aimed at Kingsley Coman and Aurelien Tchouameni, who missed their penalties in the penalty shootout, echoed that received by three England players following the Euro 2020 final loss to Italy last year
I’m disgusted at the abuse Kingsley Coman has received on social media because of his missed penalty. pic.twitter.com/oofKrhFVZU
— Frank Khalid (@FrankKhalidUK) December 19, 2022
The aftermath of the world cup final defeat is a big exhibition of that. Even Mbappe, who became the only player to score a hattrick in a world cup final with his performance on Sunday, was also not spared. More than 12 of the 25 French players are Black and have African ancestry, including French star Kylian Mbappe, who is of Cameroonian and Algerian descent.
Meanwhile, some players have had to disable comments on their Instagram accounts due to “a torrent of racist slurs, with hundreds of users on the social network posting comments likening them to apes, slaves, or even encouraging them to go back to the jungle,”.
In the world of soccer, unfortunately, racial abuse is nothing new. Players encounter racial and offensive remarks both on the club and international levels. For instance, the Premier League began its No Room For Racism campaign in February 2021 but upto now nothing has changed.
