Racist should not go unpunished – Tomori
AC Milan’s on-loan Chelsea defender, Fikayo Tomori, has called on the authorities to identify and punish social media users who racially abuse players.
Several players have received abuse online in recent weeks, prompting football authorities to write to Facebook and Twitter demanding action.
“With social media being so accessible to everyone, someone can make a fake account within five minutes and go there to spout racist abuse because someone made a mistake in the game,” Tomori said.
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“It is too easy for people to do that,” the 23-year-old added.
“Being able to identify someone who is doing these wrong things and punish them, make an example of them, is only going to help.
“If someone robs a bank you know they’re punished. If someone is racist, they should be punished so those kinds of steps need to be made.”
Manchester United forward Anthony Martial has been abused online twice in three weeks, while his United team-mates Marcus Rashford and Axel Tuanzebe have also been sent racist abuse.
Tomori’s Chelsea team-mates Antonio Rudiger and Reece James are another two players who have been targeted by abusive messages.
Tomori said: “It’s disgusting when you see these kinds of things. You know it’s 2021 now and things like this are still going on over football.
“For it to happen it’s kind of confusing and I think that there needs to be more to really stamp it out.
“I haven’t spoken to Reece personally about this specific situation, but in the past we’ve spoken about it and I’m sure that in the future we will probably speak about it again because of the nature of the world and social media. It is really hard to wrap our heads around.”
Last month the Duke of Cambridge asked social media companies to raise their game in tackling abuse, while last week the main governing bodies in English football wrote a joint letter to Twitter boss Jack Dorsey and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, calling on them to do more to combat the increase in cases online.
Both organisations have said they are committed to tackling racist abuse on their platforms and Facebook, which owns Instagram, recently announced new measures to ban users who repeatedly abuse others.
However, despite the scale of the abuse – one study covering the final six weeks of last season identified more than 3,000 explicitly abusive messages aimed at Premier League players, 56% of which were racist – there have been few prosecutions.
Tomori joined AC Milan on loan in January and although there is a clause for the England international to stay in Milan permanently, he says it’s “for the clubs to decide” where he ends up.
The Canadian-born centre-back finds himself part of a title challenge in Serie A battling against neighbours Inter Milan.
Tomori made his debut at Chelsea under Frank Lampard, the same manager who took him to Championship club Derby, but he fell down the pecking order at Stamford Bridge after the arrival of Thiago Silva.
The day after Tomori completed his move to Milan, Lampard was sacked and replaced by Thomas Tuchel.
But Tomori says his focus since the switch to Italy has been all about Milan. “There was nothing much to think really. Once I switched to Milan it was all about Milan. Whatever happens at Chelsea, happens at Chelsea.”
It could be an important few months for Tomori on the international scene, too. Euro 2020 is due to take place this summer and after making his England debut in November 2019 it’s something he would like to be aiming towards.
“I’d be lying if I said I’m not thinking about it, of course I am.
“But at the moment I’m taking it game by game, week by week and hopefully at the end of the season I have a Scudetto and I’m in the England squad.”