"People, I am sorry to say are just stupid."
Antonio Rudiger has opened up on the vicious racism he was subject to following Chelsea's dismissal of Frank Lampard.
As pressure mounted on Chelsea's former manager - a club legend from his playing days - rumours circulated of Rudiger causing trouble in the dressing room, despite Lampard selecting him for in consecutive matches before his sacking.
Rudiger's Chelsea's teammates made public displays of support in an attempt to quash the baseless rumours, but mud sticks. And the German was subsequently on the receiving end of racist abuse on social media.
This is sadly just one of numerous recent cases of players being racially abused on social media, with fellow Chelsea man Reece James and Manchester United trio Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Axel Tuanzebe among others to have their Instagram accounts filled with abusive messages.
Chelsea's website says the club is "supporting Rudiger on this matter and is investigating it, and will pass any relevant information to the police for investigation, as was the case with abuse aimed at Reece James."
Speaking to Chelsea's website, Rudiger said: "I have been in the club into my fourth season and I have had four different coaches, with Tuchel now, and it was never talked about when Sarri left the club or when Conte left the club that players were involved or something like this."
"My conscience is clear. I know who I am and I know I did not do all that nonsense that came out and for me in my head, I am very free. I am open for every new coach, as I was open also for Mr Lampard.
"I cannot control people’s emotions but people should be human beings.
"Me, I didn’t post anything but the racial abuse was immense. This makes me stronger because I know who I am, I can look in the mirror and I can smile. I know I didn’t do anything so for me this is forgotten.
"For me in life it is very important I can look in the mirror, I see myself, I know who I am. Of course it hurts but in this case I just block it out because I know I didn’t do anything."
Speaking about social media platforms' responsibility to clamp down on this abuse, the defender said: ‘
To be very honest I don’t know about all these social media things but I think the more people who make accounts, they make money off it. So me personally, I think they don’t really care because as you know, this money has power so the rest doesn’t matter, so it is hard to tell if people will make a change on that.
"I feel sorry for that but I feel more sorry for people who are not strong enough so it really affects them. Of course it affects me in a way too but it is just in a way that makes me think that people are not normal. People, I am sorry to say are just stupid."
