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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Darren Lewis

Tammy Abraham opens up on racist abuse and declares Twitter must do more

Tammy Abraham has insisted football’s black players will remain strong in the face of racist abuse.

Marcus Rashford, Romelu Lukaku, Paul Pogba, Raheem Sterling and Rhian Brewster are among a string of stars to have received abuse over the past two years.

Speaking about the abuse he received after the Super Cup Final last month, Abraham said: “I never ever thought with my generation growing up, it would still be happening now. I think we just have to stay strong.

“To be fair, there's a lot of people supporting us, from different cultures, different races.

“I think if we all just stay together there are a lot of campaigns will have an impact. It won’t stop everything but it will have an impact.”

Tammy Abraham signing autographs for young Chelsea fans (2019 Chelsea FC)

Chelsea have met with Twitter and the police after their 21-year-old striker, who has netted four time in his last six games, received insults online last month. Team-mate Kurt Zouma has also been targeted.

Abraham added: “You’re always going to get it now and again in certain countries but no, I didn’t think it would be an issue in our day and age. Kurt is similar to me, he's a strong character.

Kurt Zouma has also been subjected to racist abuse (2019 Getty Images)

“I think just recently it's just been an excuse. A lot of players from different cultures have missed penalties.

“I just feel now it’s an excuse for people to know is trying to knock them down - and they do it anonymously.

"They do it with fake accounts and all sorts. So the only advice I would give [to players] is to just block it out. Let the football do the talking. They want a reaction. [But] you just try ignore it as much as possible.”

Abraham has also accused Twitter of facilitating cyber-bullying with their failure to deal adequately with racist abuse.

“They talk a lot about cyber-bullying and all of that - well in a way that is bullying over social media.” he said.

“They can giggle with their friends and say you won't write this or write that, but it does affect some people. Twitter need to understand that.”

Twitter last week claimed to have “taken action on more than 700 examples of abuse and hateful conduct related to UK football,” but have yet to reveal a clear plan for protecting players from future abuse.

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