Maro Itoje saddened by racial abuse of England players after Euro 2020 final

"It’s become clichéd to say this but we need to do more. We need to do more to tackle it, we need to do more to get these types of people out of the stadium."

Mon, 12 Jul, 2021 - 16:05

Simon Lewis

British & Irish Lions star Maro Itoje admits he was left feeling sad by the “appalling” behaviour of some England football fans who racially abused their own players for missing penalties in Sunday night’s Euro 2020 final shootout.

The England forward watched his country’s loss to Italy on penalties from the Lions’ South African tour base near Cape Town and said he was braced for a social media backlash towards Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Buyako Saka when their spot-kicks were missed or saved at Wembley. But he said more must be done to eradicate the scourge of racism in the sport.

“It’s appalling, to be honest, it’s appalling,” Itoje said. “I think, quite frankly, the behaviour of a fraction of the fans throughout the day wasn’t very good from what I was picking up over here in South Africa, through people storming the stadium.

“The behaviour before the game wasn’t great and it only got worse after the game. I was speaking to one of my friends and I actually said the behaviour before the game wasn’t good but if England lose this game it’s going to get worse and it’s a shame that a fraction of fans literally spoil the occasion for everybody else.

“There’s a large proportion of fans that went to Wembley, who bought their ticket, who are great football fans and did their piece. But they were ruined by a large amount of people who were racially abusing some of the black players, those brave individuals who stood up to take those penalties.

“It’s just incredibly sad to hear, sad to see; it’s sad that we even have to have this conversation in 2021 and this is a large amount of the reason why so much talk is about racism in sport because these incidents happen on a semi-regular basis, which is not what anyone wants to see. It’s not what anyone wants to hear and it’s become clichéd to say this but we need to do more. We need to do more to tackle it, we need to do more to get these types of people out of the stadium.

"We need to do more to tackle this type of football culture that ruins it for a large amount of people. The England football team inspired the nation and inspired people all across the globe. I had people in Nigeria singing, 'It's Coming Home'.

"They (England) inspired so many people, so for that to be tarnished by some of the behaviour and the abuse that we've seen is very disappointing."

Itoje sent his love and support to Saka in particular after the 19-year-old missed the decisive kick that handed the European title to Italy.

“I'm an Arsenal fan and I've seen Saka's rise to prominence especially over the course of this season. He's a phenomenal player and watching him represent England I know will be pretty special for him and for everyone who knows him closely.

“When he missed a penalty and I saw his reaction thereafter I just felt so, so sad for him. He's a young man. He's 19 years old. He's going to play for England for many, many years to come. He's a great player. I just think as sports fans, as football fans, as people he's the type of person that we need to support.

“Truly and honestly as soon as he missed I knew what was coming. I knew there was going to be an outrage on social media. As athletes, it's not nice but you can take heat when it's about your performance but when it's about things that are personal, when it's about something like race – things that are completely out of your control – I just think that is unacceptable.

“I'm sending loads of support and love to Bukayo Saka.”