Sir Mo Farah revealed he has been subjected to some “shocking” messages online as the four-time Olympic champion insisted more should be done to “shame” those who racially abuse anyone on social media.
Farah was speaking days after Marcus Rashford Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka were targeted with abusive posts after the trio missed penalties in England’s shoot-out defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final defeat at Wembley.
The 38-year-old, who topped the podium at London 2012 and Rio 2016 in both the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres, believes the abuse directed towards black sports men and women is on the rise and highlighted his own experiences.
“It seems like it’s getting worse in my honest opinion because back in my time there was never as much social media,” Farah said in an interview with the BBC.
“I’ve had some shocking ones, I’ve had certain things to say ‘you don’t belong’, ‘move here’, I’ve had quite a bit.”
Farah says he has attempted to call attention to the instances of him being racially abused to social media companies, only to be ignored.
“I’ve had some shocking ones where people see the message and I’ve gone ‘delete’, I’ve blocked, I’ve gone report, gone back to the report and nothing’s been done, nothing happens,” he added.
“The social media companies need to do a lot more, they need to be held accountable to what people get up to.
“How do we make it even harder for these people? So when you sign up, you go put your passport (details) in, driving licence, your address, so automatically you’re there.
“These people have jobs, have family to feed, they might be quite high up in their jobs so their company should be aware of what they’ve been up to. Let’s shame them in the ways that we can.”
