Fulham have vowed to take the “strongest possible action” after Aboubakar Kamara was allegedly racially abused on social media after missing a penalty on Saturday.
The home side were awarded a penalty in their crucial Premier League match against Huddersfield Town and the forward refused to allow Fulham’s designated taker Aleksandar Mitrovic take the 82nd minute spot-kick, which he missed.
The supporters at Craven Cottage booed the forward, who was a half-time substitute, but he was spared further rage when Mitrovic scored his 20th league goal for Fulham in 2018 in the 91st minute to claim a vital three points for the relegation-threatened side.
After the game, Kamara posted on Twitter: “Lets go to get the three point now and together ..!!!”, which prompted a series of abuse for his actions that nearly cost Fulham the match.
Fulham have promised to support Kamara and take strong action against those that posted “damaging and hurtful” comments.
“We are aware that numerous damaging and hurtful comments have been posted on Aboubakar Kamara‘s social media account, and as a club that prides itself on our respect and civility, we condemn anyone who may be associated with this repulsive activity,” a club spokesman said in a statement.
“This is not representative in the least of genuine Fulham supporters, many of whom have posted messages of support and encouragement to the player.
“The club will provide all necessary support to Aboubakar and will take the strongest possible action against those identified and responsible for these posts.”
Claudio Ranieri accused the 23-year-old of disrespecting the club with his selfish actions and did not hold back when expressing his anger after the game.
“It was unbelievable,” he told BBC Sport. “He did not respect me, the club, team-mates and crowd. I spoke with him, it is not right.
“I said to leave the ball to Mitrovic because Mitrovic is the man to shoot the penalty. I want to kill him [when he missed], it’s normal. He scored the last penalty because there wasn’t Mitrovic.
“He said I want to shoot and I said ‘if your teammate want to shoot, what happens?’ then it is impossible to speak with this man,” Ranieri added.
“He doesn’t understand the reason. For him, everything is fine in the match. It’s unbelievable. It’s the first time in my life.”
Ranieri said he will consider dropping him from Fulham’s side to face Arsenal on New Year’s day, but Mitrovic was in a more forgiving mood than his manager. “He’s a striker, he’s hungry for goals as well, maybe he wanted to score and he scored his last penalty,” said the Serbian forward.
“It’s normal. He’s young; these kind of things can happen. It’s normal. You need to take care of each other.”
