Football club, Luton Town condemns the ‘unacceptable’ r@cist abuse suffered by Nigerian footballer Elijah Adebayo

 EFL Championship side, Luton Town, has condemned racist abuse directed at one of its players, British-born Nigerian  Elijah Adebayo on social media.  On Wednesday evening, the Nigeria-eligible striker received racist abuse on his Instagram account.  It came after the 26-year-old scored his first goal of the Championship season in a 2-1 loss to Sunderland on the same night.  Following the abuse, his club published a strongly-worded statement in support of their player, almost exactly a year on from when Adebayo was previously subjected to racist abuse. A club statement under the headline ‘Is it ever going to stop?’ read: ‘Twelve months ago Elijah Adebayo was subjected to racist abuse on social media. A wave of vile and disgusting messages pouring into his account from faceless racists. Fast forward a year later and it has happened again.  ‘At 8.28pm BST on Wednesday evening, an account in the UK on Instagram messaged Elijah with a racist comment. ‘After Elijah notified us following last night’s game with Sunderland, in which he scored his first goal of the season, we reported the incident to the police and to Meta. It is now being investigated.  ‘Just like we said a year ago, and just like we will do whenever a player or staff member is subjected to abuse, we will stand by and support Elijah unequivocally. ‘To the individual who cowardly dropped into Elijah’s DMs (direct messages): We know who you are and you know who you are. You’re not a faceless account, one which we have sadly become accustomed to reporting in recent years.  ‘But as if you have the b*lls to come to Kenilworth Road and say it to his face. We dare you. If you do, you will be faced with everyone at Luton Town Football Club, standing side-by-side with Elijah.  ‘Abuse of any kind is unacceptable. But does everyone know that? It’s why we are doing our bit to educate everyone that racism and all forms of abuse is abhorrent and unacceptable.’  Luton lost Wednesday night’s game against Sunderland 2-1, with Romaine Mundle putting the visitors back in front shortly after Adebayo’s equaliser during the second half.  The club’s statement added: ‘We are all Luton and we will continue to support and champion these initiatives until such time that the message gets through to the ignorant minority.  ‘But the question remains: how much longer will our players, our heroes – fellow human beings for crying out loud – be targeted because of the colour of their skin? There is no room for racism.’The post Football club, Luton Town condemns the ‘unacceptable’ r@cist abuse suffered byNigerian footballer ElijahAdebayo appeared first on Linda Ikeji Blog.