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Football

09th Apr 2019

Christian Kabasele becomes latest footballer to reveal racist abuse received on Instagram

Watford centre-back Christian Kabasele is the latest footballer to reveal the vile racist abuse they receive on Instagram after beating Wolves on Sunday

Reuben Pinder

The Watford defender was called a monkey by racist trolls on Instagram

Christian Kabasele is the latest footballer to post the contents of his direct messages on social media, revealing some of the racist abuse he has received from trolls.

Kabasele played a key role in Watford’s FA Cup semi-final victory over Wolves on Sunday afternoon, but was subjected to a torrent of racist abuse from opposing fans, one of whom used the N word and called him a monkey in a direct message.

The Belgium international posted a tweet on Tuesday morning, captioned ‘Good morning’, accompanied by screenshots of two separate DMs sent to his account that contained racist abuse.

This comes after Watford captain Troy Deeney also revealed the contents of his DMs, uploading screenshots to his story. Deeney scored the all important winning penalty after a brace from Gerard Deulofeu brought Watford back into the game having gone 2-0 down.

Deeney disabled comments on his posts due to the amount of abuse he was receiving, explaining: “due to events from the last 24 hours I will be taking comments off my posts.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv_9mtJHNrV/?utm_source=ig_embed

Crystal Palace forward Wilfried Zaha also quote tweeted a racist troll this weekend, posting a shrug emoji before the abusive tweet was deleted. Zaha had won a penalty that gave Palace the lead against Newcastle on Saturday afternoon.

Racism is not a problem exclusive to football, it is societal, but in revealing the levels of abuse they receive, footballers are drawing attention to the scale of the fact that racist football fans feel emboldened enough to post send this sort of abuse.