England striker Marcus Rashford has called on social media platforms to do more to tackle the issue of online racist abuse.
The 21-year-old, who is in the Three Lions squad for their Euro 2020 qualifiers against Bulgaria and Kosovo, then went on to suggest that football is “going backwards rather than forwards” in the fight against racism.
Rashford himself has been the victim of racial abuse online after he missed a penalty during Manchester United’s defeat to Crystal Palace last month.
His England and Red Devils team-mate Harry Maguire suggested that social media companies need to enforce ID checks on the back of Paul Pogba being racially abused for missing a penalty during United’s draw at Wolves earlier this season.
And Rashford echoed these claims in the pre-match press conference ahead of England’s clash against Bulgaria at Wembley on Saturday.
He said: “It’s obviously disappointing. It seems to me like things have been going backwards rather than forwards.
“All around the world people have been standing together and that’s all we can do. We have to rely on the campaigns to deal with the situation because our voice (as players) only has so much power.
“For me, it’s too easy to do whatever you like on the internet. Any of us now could go on and create accounts and write what we want under anybody’s posts and nobody would ever know.
“It’s easy to figure it out and if you have to show identification to create an account that means everybody can only have one account. For me, there’s hundreds of thousands of people that use my name on social media and they can write what they like.”
England will be looking to continue their 100 per cent start to their qualifying campaign, having beaten Czech Republic and Montenegro easily in their first two Group A matches.
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And manager Gareth Southgate said his selection headache ahead of Bulgaria’s visit was a nice problem to have.
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Southgate said: “The competition for places is a great thing for us. As a coach, that’s an enjoyable problem to have.”
Earlier this week, former Charlton, Huddersfield and Southend boss Chris Powell was appointed as a coach in the England set-up as part of the Football Association’s programme to solve the challenge of under-representation of BAME coaches.
Southgate said of the decision to appoint the former Charlton, Huddersfield and Southend boss: “We’re trying to be at the forefront of giving opportunities to coaches from minority ethnic groups and Chris is a good example of someone who’s fully qualified, has good experience as a manager and obviously experience of international football.
“He has actually worked with some of the players in our squad when he was a club manager.
“So, I’m hoping it’s going to be a brilliant insight for him into how we work.
“He’ll be able to bring qualities we don’t have within our coaching team.
“We hope to create role models that young people can aspire to.
“That they can see there is opportunity. That they can see that some of the barriers that they feel have been there, have been broken down. We think that’s a very strong and important message.”