Luton Town, an EFL Championship team, has denounced racist remarks made on social media about one of its players, Nigerian Elijah Adebayo, who was born in the UK.
The striker, who is eligible for Nigeria, was subjected to racial taunts on his Instagram account on Wednesday night.
It happened the same evening that the 26-year-old scored his first goal of the Championship season in a 2-1 defeat to Sunderland.
Nearly a year after Adebayo was first the target of racist taunts, his team released a forceful statement in support of their player in the wake of the abuse.\
A club statement under the headline ‘Is it ever going to stop?’ read: ‘Twelve months ago Elijah Adebayo was subjected to racist abuse on social media. A wave of vile and disgusting messages pouring into his account from faceless racists. Fast forward a year later and it has happened again.
‘At 8.28pm BST on Wednesday evening, an account in the UK on Instagram messaged Elijah with a racist comment.
‘After Elijah notified us following last night’s game with Sunderland, in which he scored his first goal of the season, we reported the incident to the police and to Meta. It is now being investigated.
ust like we said a year ago, and just like we will do whenever a player or staff member is subjected to abuse, we will stand by and support Elijah unequivocally.
‘To the individual who cowardly dropped into Elijah’s DMs (direct messages): We know who you are and you know who you are. You’re not a faceless account, one which we have sadly become accustomed to reporting in recent years.
‘But as if you have the balls to come to Kenilworth Road and say it to his face. We dare you. If you do, you will be faced with everyone at Luton Town Football Club, standing side-by-side with Elijah.
‘Abuse of any kind is unacceptable. But does everyone know that? It’s why we are doing our bit to educate everyone that racism and all forms of abuse is abhorrent and unacceptable.’
Luton lost Wednesday night’s game against Sunderland 2-1, with Romaine Mundle putting the visitors back in front shortly after Adebayo’s equaliser during the second half.
The club’s statement added: ‘We are all Luton and we will continue to support and champion these initiatives until such time that the message gets through to the ignorant minority.
‘But the question remains: how much longer will our players, our heroes – fellow human beings for crying out loud – be targeted because of the colour of their skin? There is no room for racism.’
