Three England players that missed penalties against Italy have been consoled by Prince William who is “sickened” by the racist abuse they received, it has been reported.
The Duke of Cambridge reportedly headed down to the dressing room after the disappointing Euro 2020 final last Sunday to be with the squad and show his support for them.
England came undone in the penalties with the game having finished 1-1 after extra-time. Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka all missed with their spot-kicks.
William has spoken again with the trio since then game and a Daily Mail source said that he was “sickened” by the “unacceptable and abhorrent” racist taunts they received.
He is also reportedly speaking to the Football Association about putting more pressure on social media companies to find a way to not publish the vile content.
William made a statement after the game saying: “It must stop now and all those involved should be held accountable.”
After the abuse that he received Rashford said: “"I can take critique of my performance all day long, my penalty was not good enough, it should have gone in but I will never apologise for who I am and where I came from.”
William has spoken before about social media companies stepping up their game to stop online racist abuse.
He told the BBC: “Their self-image is so grounded in their positive power for good that they seem unable to engage in constructive discussion about the social problems they are creating.”
Instagram have admitted that an error in their technology meant that some racist comments and emojis were not removed.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri reportedly said content had "mistakenly" been identified as within guidelines instead of referred to human moderators.
More than 80 percent of the Instagram accounts identified as trolling the England players remain active, according to the Centre for Countering Digital Hate.
