Former Southampton striker, Jonathan Afolabi, received vile online abuse yesterday evening. The Republic of Ireland U21 international, who is now contracted with Celtic, was playing for Dundee on loan when the incident occurred.
Following Dundee’s 3-2 Scottish Cup win over Lowland League side Bonnyrigg Rose, Afolabi was sent a series of disgusting racist messages on Instagram. He, and another unnamed player, also received abuse following last Saturday’s league game against Hearts.
The Scottish Championship side have reported both incidents and are considering all other options.
Meanwhile, the club has just released this statement on their website:
“Following last night’s Scottish Cup victory over Bonnyrigg Rose we were made aware of vile racist messages that had been directed to one of our players.
Dundee Football Club utterly condemns racism in any form.
Racism has no place in society. We have reported these unacceptable messages and will look into what further steps can be taken.
Sadly, this isn’t the first incident in the last seven days which has seen one of our players being subjected to abuse. After last weekend’s match with Heart of Midlothian, another player received disgusting messages which have also been reported.
As a club we have zero tolerance for these abusive messages and give our players our full support.”
Afolabi screenshotted the abuse he received and it makes for disgusting reading:
Just simply disgusting that this even goes on ???? pic.twitter.com/Hfngd3LRBN
— Lewis ? (@LewisLaird01) January 9, 2021