Kick It Out call for "decisive action' after Rashford racist abuse

Kick It Out has called for “decisive action” after Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford was subjected to racist abuse on social media moments after missing a penalty against Crystal Palace.

The past week has seen Chelsea forward Tammy Abraham, Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba and Reading’s Yakou Meite all racially abused on Twitter after failing to score from the spot.

In the build-up to the latest set of domestic games, Premier League managers put the focus on social media companies to police abuse dished out to players online.

With a little over 20 minutes to go of United’s Premier League game against Palace, and with the home side trailing 1-0, Rashford saw his penalty cannon off the left post and across the face of goal.

Following the miss, the England international received numerous abusive posts on social media.

Anti-discrimination campaigners Kick It Out were quick to condemn the latest incidents.

“The vile racist abuse on social media continued today. This problem will not go away and needs decisive action – that’s what we‘ll be making clear to Twitter when we meet,” a statement read.

Representatives of Twitter are also planning to meet with officials at Manchester United to discuss the racial abuse aimed at Pogba following his penalty miss against Wolves on Monday night.

Twitter have been contacted for comment by the PA news agency following Saturday’s latest incident.

Following the match, which saw Palace win 2-1 following a stoppage-time goal from defender Patrick Van Aanholt, Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hit out at the abuse directed towards Rashford.

“It’s the same we spoke about before the weekend. It’s unheard of and we need it to stop, it needs to stop,” Solskjaer said at the post-match press conference.

“I’m just lost for words if it keeps going. We keep having all these campaigns ‘No to Racism’ and it keeps hiding behind fake identities. It’s just crazy that we talk about this in 2019.”

When contacted by the PA news agency on Saturday evening, Twitter firmly reiterated the statements of last week, with racist behaviour having no place on the social media platform.

The company says a series of accounts have been permanently suspended over the abuse directed towards footballers and insisted it will take robust action on any account which violates its rules..

Earlier this year, Twitter’s ‘health update’ post highlighted progress made when it comes to hateful conduct on the service.