If only he had a pseudonym to operate under...
Former Reading, Portsmouth and Stoke City striker Dave Kitson has been accused of posting racially insensitive content on Instagram after a series of posts emerged in which he implied that black footballers look the same as one another.
The revelation comes after he suggested on talkSPORT that Raheem Sterling's social media activity made him a target for abuse on the pitch rather than his race.
"You cannot condone this racism in any way, shape or form, it's disgusting", Kitson said. "I do believe that players make themselves a target. Why Raheem Sterling? There's other black players on the pitch, every single week."
https://twitter.com/talkSPORT/status/1071775992455282689
He added that footballers have "a duty of care to ourselves, to be careful with social media and the way we portray ourselves."
Kitson continued: "Jealousy is an awful thing amongst the human race. I trawled through Raheem Sterling's Instagram feed to find that a lot of what he put on in his early days has now been deleted. And it was look at my cars, look at my house, look at this, look at that, look at me. That's going to antagonise people.
"Now that is no excuse whatsoever for racially abusing somebody, but you sew a seed among people who are not racists not to like that particular person because they don't want to see that in their faces every day."
However, in the aftermath of his comments, users on social media have drawn attention to the fact many of his online posts show pictures of expensive cars, and that he has also posted a video of himself using a gun.
There are also several photos of black footballers, in which their names are incorrectly captioned, prompting accusations of racial insensitivity.
In this post, for example, Kitson labels Liverpool former midfielder Momo Sissoko as Emile Heskey.
In this post, Kitson labels Patrice Evra as Danny Welbeck.
In this post, he tags William Gallas as Emmanuel Adebayor.
He has also posted pictures with white players incorrectly captioned with the wrong name.
A number of Twitter users called him out for his past posts.
https://twitter.com/RFFH/status/1072831090388283392?s=19
https://twitter.com/steviecnorth/status/1072847084318019584
https://twitter.com/ShiptonMaureen/status/1072567947808464897
https://twitter.com/CameronTheRodge/status/1072547899618267136
Journalist Daniel Harris also pointed out that Kitson has, in the past,
complained about abuse directed at him for his hair colour, comparing it to the racist abuse that black players suffer.
https://twitter.com/DanielHarris/status/1071858470230609920
