Tottenham confirm Son Heung-min was racially abused after Manchester United defeat

11 April 2021 23:20

Son Heung-min has become the latest Premier League to be subjected to racist abuse online, following Tottenham's 3-1 defeat to Manchester United on Sunday.

Son opened the scoring in the game and was also involved in controversy when United had a goal ruled out after he went down following a flailing hand to his face from Scott McTominay.

After the game, Spurs confirmed that the South Korean had been sent racial abuse on social media.

"Another matchday and more abhorrent racial abuse suffered by one of our players. This has again been reported to the platforms and we shall now undertake a full review alongside the Premier League to determine the most effective action moving forward. We stand with you, Sonny," a club statement read.

There has been a depressing increase in the amount of players reporting racist abuse over the past few months. Manchester United's Axel Tuanzebe, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial have all been sent vile messages on social media recently, as have a string of other Premier League stars.

There is a growing opinion that the only way to force social media companies into action is by boycotting their services. Recently Championship side Swansea City announced that they would be ceasing social media updates for seven days, while staff and players at Rangers recently joined them in coming off social media.

The Premier League have been running the No Room For Racism campaign all season | Stu Forster/Getty Images

Back in February the FA called on the UK government to deal with the problem, saying:
"It has been yet another weekend where players are facing discriminatory abuse and having to deal with anonymous keyboard warriors who hide in a world of impunity.

"At The FA, we believe that enough is enough. Social media companies need to step up and take accountability and action to ban abusers from their platforms, gather evidence that can lead to prosecution and support making their platforms free from this type of abhorrent abuse."

Source: 90min