Richard Madeley has called on police to “lock away” football fans sending racist abuse to England’s players following their Euro 2020 defeat.
The England team’s loss to Italy at last night’s (11 July) Euro 2020 final sparked a racist backlash against penalty-takers Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, leading the Football Association to release a statement condemning the attacks.
On Good Morning Britain today (12 July), presenter Madeley admonished the abuse being sent to players, and said that he’d “had enough of this racism”.
“I think it’s not enough to just decry it and call it disgusting,” he continued. “We have to track these people down, and it is possible through IP addresses. We need to spend some money and some time and some officers to get these guys and bring them to court and lock them away.”
He said that the racism is “not representative” of the UK, adding: “It is a disgusting distortion of what this country now is today. It didn’t use to be, but now we are a properly diverse, wonderful country to live in today. These people who are sending these messages are breaking the law.
“They’re breaking a profound moral code and they need to be dragged by the scruff of the neck into the dock.”
Madeley’s co-presenter Susanna Reid agreed with him, saying that the country is “united in condemning the racist abuse”.
Rashford, Sancho and Saka missed their respective goals at last night’s match when the final went down to penalties.
The trio’s social media pages were quickly flooded with racist comments, leading the FA to release a statement condemning the “disgusting behaviour”.
They added: “We will continue to do everything we can to stamp discrimination out of the game, but we implore government to act quickly and bring in the appropriate legislation so this abuse has real life consequences.”
A number of stars, including Adele, Nigella Lawson and Tom Felton, expressed their disappointment at the Euro result in the wake of the game, while overwhelmingly praising the England team’s efforts over the course of the tournament.
